


In My Beginning is My End

by Tasseomancer



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood and Violence, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes's Trigger Words, HYDRA are the actual worst, Hydra (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture, Vampire!Bucky, Vomiting, what even is this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 02:34:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11221482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasseomancer/pseuds/Tasseomancer
Summary: If Bucky had trouble recognizing Steve in Azzano, it was understandable.  His bearing, the timbre of his voice, his vitality, and hell- even his height was wrong.  But the eyes, the ambition, the look on his face when he pulled him from the table-- These things, they let Bucky know who he was in a matter of moments.If Steve had trouble recognizing Bucky after breaking him free from Azzano, it was only after careful scrutiny and a few days' worth of observation.  The eyes, the sly remarks, the look on his face when he pulled him from the table-- These things, they let Steve know he was still the Bucky he'd grown up with... But something was wrong.  Seriously wrong.  His bearing, the hoarseness of his voice, his increasing weakness, and hell- even his posture was strangely subdued.  Bucky was hurting.  He figured it was just shell shock, right?It was only a matter of time before Steve would find out.  And maybe, Bucky thinks, he should never have broken him free in the first place.  Maybe he should have left him to die, again, strapped down like the animal he's fairly sure he has become.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from T.S. Eliot's 'East Coker', AU after Bucky's rescue from Hydra during WWII
> 
> I am sad at the lack of Vampire!Bucky fic when so much of his back story lends itself so well to that particular paranormal bent. On the plus side, the vampire!Bucky fic I have read thus far has been PHENOMENAL AND AMAZING. If any of this fic makes the slightest bit of sense or is even remotely enjoyable, it's because of all of you who've written a beautifully fanged Bucky already.
> 
> Without further ado...
> 
> 10/2/17: Quick update on the title, it seemed to suit the work better. Chapter 5 is finished! Some spoilers may be present in the updated tags list, so beware.

Maybe six, seven more miles? Maybe more. He's tired, and his vision is blurry, and his just-about-everything hurts, so it's a little difficult to say.

It's hard to believe how light out it is, still, even through the tree cover and smoke-screened stars. The moon is a bare sliver, but somehow Bucky can still make out leaves on the branches and mud caked on the soles of his unlaced boots. Maybe light isn't the right word, he considers. It's still dark, just... well defined. At least, it is when he's able to stop and notice it. He struggles to stay upright, shuffle his mud-heavy boots one after the other, until at some distant point he can collapse inside his tent and sleep. He seems to get shakier as he goes, knees threatening to give out under the weight of exhaustion and stiff, aching muscles.

An arm wraps around his ribs and pulls him flush against-- Steve. He'd forgotten, in the confusion of two days on their endless trudge back toward camp, just how **big** he is now; and it's a testament to Bucky's own dazed mind that this is not actually topping his 'holy shit' list this week. First prize winner would be his own incredible and unlikely survival. In second place would be his sudden and emasculating role as the distressed damsel in his own damn rescue, (by his aforementioned suddenly-frighteningly-fit best friend, no less). But the rest of it, all the questions, all the information he feels an indignant right to know as official 'best guy' in Steve's life, takes a back seat to his desire for the long march to end. He so desperately needs to sleep.

Bucky's stomach growls.

Okay, he amends, it wouldn't be bad to get something to eat, either. Except then he remembers what that means for him, now, and his knees do finally buckle.

"Hey! Hey, almost there, stay with me." 

Bucky swallows hard and tries to focus on anything but the lance of sudden pain in his belly. Thankfully, he's wounded enough that there are plenty of other distractions at hand to occupy him. His bloodied side, his broken fingers, and oh- his left ankle, for example, was crunching like gravel every time he tried to put weight on it. At least he _could_ put weight on it now- an unnaturally fast reaction, bones re-situating themselves on their own somehow. One of the perks of whatever poison they'd shot him up with in that place. 

_But that isn't all it did, though, is it?_

Bucky's stomach growls again and he feels sweat break on the back of his neck. Jesus. How-- God, how's he going to do this? How could he possibly think he could go back, knowing what he is? What he... what he needs. The pain in his stomach is starting to gnaw with icy teeth, and Bucky's head spins dizzily. He can't tell Steve. No, he can't. His throat constricts with the sudden panic. The poison. The fucking poison, and that nagging hunger whose voice will grow... he can already feel it, he knows what will happen if he tries to ignore it. He knows-- Bucky swallows and tries to drag in a breath-- he knows what will happen if he can't eat soon, _he knows what it'll make him do--_

And just like that, his vision whites until _he begins to make out shapes moving in the periphery of his eyes, hears the screaming, the screaming, grown men crying for their mothers, their sergeant, Jesus, whoever could hear, and God who **can't** hear them in this silent hell where the devils all wear white masks and speak in soft clinical voices, scribble notes on charts and map out his body like a med school cadaver, cutting, stabbing, breaking, does it hurt, does it burn, do you know where you are, do you know who you are, do you know what you have **become** , Bucky? Bucky? _

Bucky?

"Bucky? No, no, come on, Buck. Come back. That's it. Breathe. Breathe for me, just like you used to tell me, right? Easy, now. In, out. Like that. There you go, easy, in. Out."

The hands on his shoulders are firm. No trace left of the little blonde boy from Brooklyn, so righteous, diving into trouble at the first sign of injustice; and here's his oldest pal on his knees in the mud, sobbing like a scared shitless dame all because his stomach hurts, and he knows what that means now.

He wonders, desperately, how God would let a man like Stevie climb down into a pit so deep for a guy like him.

Maybe he should never have survived. The men, screaming, echoing behind his eyes. It won't stop, he knows, or go away. It will reverberate forever like the pulse he is supposed to have, throbbing in his chest because he remembers that sometimes, near the end, he was the one they screamed to get away from. He was the monster they tried to escape.

_What have I done? Oh God, what have I done? What have I done?_ For a second, not even long enough to stumble his steps, he sees himself in the corner of that dank and lightless cellar, a body purpled and swollen with rot tossed in the corner opposite, and the smell choking him. He remembers the vomit and the reek of fear, how the sounds of his breath were the only company in the dark after the screaming stopped and he could force his sobs back down into his chest. 

_What have I done? I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry_

_**Almost two whole weeks that time. He was biting himself by the end of it: look. His arms are almost healed. Do you think Zola will want us to note that?** _

_This is hell. This is hell. Ma, I wish I'd never left, I wish I could see you, see Becca and Stevie, and oh God, it's not bad enough I'll die here. I'm killing for them. I killed. I killed him, I knew him and I killed him, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm-_

His breath hitches and he chokes on the memory. At least Steve hadn't seen, at least he'd found him on a day they were testing the serum, and not in that filthy chamber that smelled and looked like a charnel house. _**Do you think he'll starve to death if he bleeds out? Can he suffocate? How long does it take to regrow every bone in the right middle finger after they've been removed?** It felt like it, yes, three weeks, Ma, Ma, I don't want to die but God do I wish I was dead..._

Steve carefully lowers him to the ground and brushes the hair from his forehead as though Bucky were something deserving of that kind of gentleness, and it makes him retch a few times but there's nothing to come up. It just makes his stomachache worse. 

"Easy, Buck," he whispers, "We're okay. You're not there, you're out, we got you. They aren't gonna hurt you anymore. I'll kill 'em if they try, you better believe me. Okay? Easy, now." 

Bucky understands that Steve doesn't know what he's done. If he did, he wouldn't even look at him, and he damn well wouldn't touch him. But Steve isn't that kind of man, no. He'd be kind to Bucky in the end, whether he deserved it or not. Probably put him out of his misery right then and there. _How? Bullets didn't work, he wouldn't know to strangle me, maybe he'd try to cut my goddamn head off..._ Bucky wishes, for a moment, that he would have left him on that table, strapped down, to starve.

Because maybe Steve wouldn't understand, but that doesn't matter. Bucky understands. It's what he deserves. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wondering why Bucky still needs to breathe and whatnot if he's dead? I'm playing fast and loose with vampirism here, folks. You'll see.
> 
> This chapter should be a little longer. Sorry about the short-ass teaser that was chapter 1. 
> 
> Additionally, my inability to stick to any kind of verb tense in a rough draft will probably drive you crazy and I'm sorry. I haven't edited this nonsense yet, but I will.

Cloud cover and dim moonlight made the tail end of their return to camp a little rougher than it should have been. Their timing was off, and Steve knew it was his own fault, but he wasn't going to leave Bucky to straggle behind. Not even if that seemed like his friend's very intentional modus operandi right now.

Shell shock had set in, Steve knew. How could it not? Torture like that... it was a miracle Bucky remembered his own name, rank and serial number, let alone recognized Steve after the serum. He was beginning to theorize about the drugs Bucky had been injected with, in part as a way to pass the time, and in part because he had no doubt their effects were more than just keeping a man upright and mobile when he should otherwise be dead.

He had a sick feeling that they had not seen the worst of it, not yet, and there was no way to ask Bucky right now. Bucky's priorities began and ended with staying conscious and moving forward. Ask what he will, Steve figures, after a long night's rest and some warm food.

Warm, for sure, because Bucky's body is so cold that the chill was tangible through his clothes, and Steve hadn't felt skin this frigid and clammy since his own last close encounter with death by the flu. He remembered clearly the sensation of freezing as the brushfire of a fever licked at his body, sweating bullets under four blankets with Bucky's voice in his ear, _you'll be aw'right, Steve, don't you dare die on me, you chicken. You beat the spit outta Joey Mattino for takin' that kid's Dodgers ticket last week and you had 'im on the ropes, right? So you better beat this because a flu ain't got nothing on Joe's left hook and you pummeled him good so don't you die, don't you do it, you promise me, you promise,_ and Bucky's mouth isn't running at all right now. In any other circumstances, Steve would assume the worst by that fact alone, but he doesn't let his thoughts wander far enough along the edge of that fear because at least one of them has to be coherent enough to get them to camp. Ergo, Bucky needs food and sleep. Enough fuel to rev up that endless chatter and bring back a little of his best friend. Whatever might be left. _Don't you dare think like that._

Bucky's wheezing, chilled like deep wet earth, and still bleeding along his side. His stomach is growling loud enough for him to hear it and it's almost like it's hurting him, the way Bucky palms his belly and hisses through his clenched teeth. Did they starve him in there? A cool trickle over his wrist startles him and Steve can feel the blood-soaked fabric of his friend's shirt ooze beneath his fingers. He isn't a doctor, but the fact that even Bucky's blood is cold to the touch is something so unnerving and strange to him that he knows it can't be good. They're starting to catch up to the others, can catch a whiff of tobacco and sweat, when Bucky stops with a shudder.

"Buck?"

"Don't feel too good," he rasps, and sways on his feet a little. Steve clutches him tighter, even though his friend startles at the pressure on his wounded side.

"Sorry!"

"S'okay."

The way Bucky is slurring his speech makes Steve wonder if he doesn't have a concussion, but more likely than not it's just sheer exhaustion. He must be thirsty, too, because the rough scrape of his voice is so much softer than Steve is used to hearing. He offers his canteen and is a little disturbed when Bucky upends it immediately, almost choking in his urgency to drink. It's emptied in moments, and Bucky sways again before dropping to his knees in the mud. He holds himself, canteen discarded by his side, and rocks a little, back and forth, breathing in gasps with his eyes screwed shut, and Steve begins to suspect there's some internal damage they overlooked in his haste to get Bucky away, get him out, get him safe.

Settling into a crouch, Steve picked up his canteen and packed it away with the rest of his gear.

Beside him, Bucky groans, then mumbles, "I'll get up, s'okay. Jus' gimme a minute."

"Take all the time you need. We're not being followed, we have a while to spare."

With a shake of his head, Bucky reaches out and holds Steve's shoulder to stabilize him as he stands. Steve rises with him and resumes his job as his friend's impromptu crutch. They move forward, limping on again, and Steve is a little grateful that he can still make out the silhouettes of their men in the dark.

The sooner Steve can get him to the medic, the better. Whatever they pumped through his veins, he's almost grateful because it's obvious what a miracle it is that Bucky is even alive.

It seems to take forever, but the camp lights are coming into view and Steve feels relief wash over him like a tidal wave. He tries to pick up their pace, but Bucky is losing his grasp. His head is down, eyes following his own steps. The sparkle of a dozen fires is like a lighthouse flickering through the trees, but the closer they get, the more agitated Bucky gets; shivering under Steve's hands and screwing his eyes shut. It takes a little while before he realizes what's wrong.

He'd thought, at first, that Bucky had a headache: The way he winced, held his forehead, pushed his cheek against Steve's chest like he needed some counter-pressure. It wasn't until he noticed how it got worse the closer they were to camp, that Steve realized it was the light. Bucky's eyes were streaming and raw. He wasn't holding a hand to his forehead because it hurt, (although his eyes were probably smarting like crazy from the looks of it), but because he was trying to shield himself from the soft distant glow, and even then Steve has to ask before he knows for sure:

"Buck, what's wrong?"

"It's too bright," he gasps, but it's muffled by the way he tries to burrow further into Steve to escape it. "The light, it's burnin' my eyes."

To his credit, Steve doesn't ask anything else. He just turns his friend's back to the camp before rummaging around in his pack, because he thinks- did he?- _Yes, okay, this'll do it._

In the dark, he pulls out a bandanna from his bag and folds it over a few times. It smells like motor oil and maybe even a little like Brooklyn, but it's been through hell and high water and somehow that makes it feel up to the job, at least to his mind. Steve holds the cloth in one hand and touches Bucky's wrist gently, trying not to startle him because he's still pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes as if to rub the sting from them.

"Stand still. I think this'll help," he says, and he very softly covers Bucky's eyes with the improvised blindfold, and fixes it in place with a knot. Under the pale moon, Bucky's cheeks are still wet. The way the inky night is mirrored by the tears, the salty streams almost look like blood.

He shakes himself from his morbid thoughts enough to ask, "Better?" and he receives a nod.

"We're almost there. Just a few minutes, really. We're gonna make it." Steve isn't even sure who he's trying to reassure anymore. Really, does it matter?

As they finally shamble into camp, Steve takes a moment to be grateful for the relative quiet. It's late enough, or early enough depending on your perspective, that most of the men are asleep, and those who aren't have thousand-yard-stares and don't look as though they could talk even if they wanted to. _Haunted,_ Steve thinks, and he shivers because in the right light, their motionless bodies could be mistaken for dead. Bucky coughs beside him, and it shakes him from the moment. Their tent is only a few yards away. Already, Steve can feel the pressure lifting from his mind as he realizes, truly, that they've made it. Bucky is returned to him, they can get him help, they can-

A low rumble from Bucky's stomach makes him curse as he reflexively clutches his midsection, caught off guard by the sudden visceral pang, and Steve decides that's what will take precedence. Everything else can wait for morning.

"Come on, Buck, we have to find you something to eat before you're down for the count."

It's possible, he amends, that they will need a psych eval along with the medic tomorrow because Bucky is _laughing._ He's obviously in pain and Steve has no idea why his comment seems so hilarious, but Bucky's hoarse laughter is at least a momentary glimpse of his friend's old humor, inappropriately timed though it may be.

"You wanna explain what's so funny while I heat up dinner, or are you just gonna stand here laughing for the hell of it?"

They've made it to the tent, finally, and Steve starts a small fire after settling Bucky onto the bench between the fire pit and their tent. The laughter dies a bit, though, as Bucky puts a hand to the bandanna over his eyes, then turns a little so he's straddling the bench rather than facing the fire head-on.

"Nothin', Steve," he says, finally catching his breath and regaining his composure, "Believe me. It isn't funny at all. And isn't that fuckin' hilarious?"

Steve hesitates briefly, then sighs and begins to gather together a few things from his private stash of food. He doesn't come across real ingredients often, but when he does he takes what he can get. If Bucky's been starved, and all signs indicate that that's true, then typical army rations won't do a lick of good. He throws together a quick stew with his remaining beef jerky and his scavenged vegetables; tosses in a little contraband beer for good measure. Steve stirs the pot thoughtfully, trying to understand that last comment. Bucky swears, has always cursed, but 'fuck' is a word a little too far even for him, most days. Bucky's mother would've boxed his ears for a word like that. It makes his hackles rise, for some reason, because things feel... off. He glances at his friend, who seems to be idly and blindly exploring the wood of the bench in front of him with his fingertips. He's lost in thought; Steve can tell because even with his eyes covered, Bucky's easy to read. He's biting his lip. ...and Steve does a double-take, because light was glinting off of something, and he could have sworn... Had Bucky's teeth always looked like that?

Steve stares in open confusion, knowing that his scrutinizing will not be caught as long as Bucky is blindfolded. _His teeth are sharper._

The realization makes him go a little queasy, because he's not entirely sure he believes what he is seeing. He must be tired, or even already asleep.

Bucky shifts uncomfortably. "I can't see you, Steve, but when you go all quiet like that, I know you're thinking hard about something. What is it?"

He isn't sure what makes him say it. Steve would love to blame it on battle fatigue or a screw loose, but honestly he's just too tired to dance around what must either be a hallucination, or else a very disturbing side-effect of Bucky's captivity.

"Your teeth," he says. "They're sharper."

Bucky goes very still.

For a while, the sounds of the camp filter in. Crackling fires and far-off snoring, soft chatter a few yards over. Flapping canvas in quiet night breezes. An owl, calling, and the susuruss of leaves in the dark. If it went quiet enough, you could just make out the sounds of artillery fire to match the lightning-like flashes on the furthest horizon on the opposite side of the camp, where the trees dispersed into over-trodden mud and old trenches.

Finally, he speaks.

"I don't," he begins haltingly, but it isn't like Bucky to lie, and never at all to Steve, so he starts over though Steve can hear how scared he is in the nearly imperceptible quaver of his voice:

"Yeah, I... I know they are."

The brevity goes unappreciated as the silence yawns between them, and suddenly Steve can smell that the stew is starting to scald, so he takes it off the hook and nestles the pot near the hot stones encircling their fire. Two tin bowls are procured from his pack, but he stops there and leans a little. He pulls at the back of his neck with a weary hand for a moment, weighing in his mind whether it's worth discussing something so evidently traumatic to Bucky before they've even had a chance to sleep or eat, when Bucky's stomach growls again.

This time, Bucky cries out and doubles over like he's taken a kick to the gut and Steve stands on reflex because _oh shit, Bucky's hurt,_ but a weak and gravely voice says, "Sit down," and Steve can't help but lower himself back onto his bench and wait.

"I swear," Bucky rasps, "that I will t-tell you everything. And when I do, it's pretty likely that you will want to kill me."

Steve opens his mouth to protest and is forestalled by a raised palm, because even blindfolded his best friend knows him better than he knows himself.

"It would be the safest thing, the most honorable thing, to do. And that's you all over, Steve. You always do the right thing." Bucky is still clutching his stomach like he's gonna be sick, and the pain furrowing his brow makes Steve want to shake sense into him. He's not thinking right. How can he, when he's so obviously hurt?

"But I... I can't tell you tonight. Not yet. I, uh," and he sucks in a breath and wraps his arms tighter around his belly, "I'm too selfish."

What does he even mean? Steve is lost.

"I want one more day. God knows I don't deserve it," he swallows, "but I promise I'll tell you everything, even the worst of it, tomorrow. My teeth? That ain't nothing, Stevie. There's so much wrong with me I'll be up half the night trying to figure out where to even begin explaining what happened to me."

And what can he say to that? It's a minute or two at least before Steve can formulate a response.

"Whatever they did, Bucky," and here he takes an educated guess, "or whatever they made you do?" (Bucky visibly flinches and Steve grimly acknowledges he'd guessed correctly) "We're going to find a way past it. You're my best friend, Buck. You've stood by me through the worst of it all. There's not a damn thing you could say that'd make me walk away, let alone hurt you."

Steve's heart almost breaks at the Bucky's expression. Even with his eyes hidden, there's a sort of despairing hope evident in his features, as though he wants to believe what he's hearing but knows it isn't true.

"I'm not gonna let you go through this alone," Steve says, and he resolutely moves to sit astride the same bench as his oldest friend, face-to-face in chiaroscuro built from fire and shadow. He takes Bucky's hand and holds it between his own, trying to press a living warmth back into his skin. One of them knows it won't do any good. His heart hasn't beaten in weeks, maybe longer. He doesn't even know for sure when it stopped, but he knows he feels the absence of it, like a stone suspended there, nestled between lungs that refuse to give up the habit of breathing.

Bucky's eyes are still watering, Steve realizes, noting the silvery threads limning his face from cheeks to throat. The bandanna obscures and conceals, enough so that Steve is left guessing whether it is the blaze searing Bucky's vision even through the cloth, or the insistent pangs of hunger and tired resignation that are causing his tears.

"You should eat. Seriously." Steve turns for a moment before offering Bucky a small bowl of whatever it is he's made. He can't see it, but the smell is earthy and far better than any rations they'd offer. Bucky suspects Steve must have found the ingredients himself somewhere; stashed it away for safe keeping. Recognizable meat, actual vegetables. This can't have been easy to get, and he's grateful for it, for the chance to feel anything but dead and icy inside. It isn't going to do anything to stop the hunger, but Bucky wants to feel this, one last time. He's sitting with his friend, his best and oldest friend. He's safe. They're breaking bread together and for a moment, Bucky can almost imagine that the fire is in a hearth and the crickets are the purr of his sister's cat. His mother would be making dinner, telling the boys to wash their hands and set the table, his father will be home soon. It could have been anything that Steve gave him, and tonight it would have tasted like home.

The illusion breaks after a while, when he's eaten everything but felt it burn away to nothing before he could ever get full. His stomach twists with hunger, and Bucky cries silently.

He wishes he could go home.

Instead, he and Steve enter their tent and lie on their cots, the fire having crumbled away into glowing coals. Steve will pretend to sleep, but stare worriedly at the canvas while he hears Bucky toss and turn, unable to rest while his body brutally and painfully demands its due.

Bucky thinks about the IV they'd hooked him up to the first week under Zola's observation, slipping toxins into his blood as he lay prone on the table. How he watched it for hours; that deadly stream of translucent blue, acidly working its way through his veins, crawling along his arteries like a line of ants on a sidewalk. Steady. Inevitable. He remembers how he'd felt his eyeteeth as they lengthened and thinned to razor-sharpness after a few days. How the food they tossed in his cell did less and less to keep him going, until he felt with a calm certainty that he was going to starve whether they fed him or not; with no idea what it was that he really needed to make the hunger stop. He wonders if he cuts deep enough whether he'd start bleeding that same freakish blue color, but the thought of blood makes a bolt of pain clench his insides and he bites his tongue hard to keep from crying out in the dark.

Steve shifts minutely, as if sensing Bucky's distress, and he waits for him to roll over, but he doesn't. Bucky releases his tongue and is briefly consoled that he hadn't bitten hard enough to... he swallows. A few more hours. He has survived longer than this without eating, he knows. He remembers when they wrote it down, even; how one of them nipped the eraser of her pencil thoughtfully before scribbling a few extra notes and directing some orderlies to put him back in his cell. Bucky, muzzled like a dog, hanging between them too weak to even support his own weight. By the time he regained consciousness, the hunger was gone.

He had no idea how they'd fed him, but then he saw the trace of blood they'd missed in the cleanup, smeared as though a body were dragged from the cell. When he realized what had happened, he threw up. He was sure that moment of horror and dawning self-revulsion was the worst it could get, but managed to remain sane, clinging to the hope that someone would inevitably screw up: Cut too deep, remove something vital, anything. Two days later they pushed someone into the cell with him. It was a young kid, probably barely out of basic before he was shipped out. Scrawny. Probably barely scraped through in his training. Blue eyes, he'd realized with nostalgia. And his hair... his hair was straw yellow.

They didn't feed him again. Bucky lasted longer than he ever had before, but in the end he couldn't stop himself, and he fed. He always fed.

Steve heard Bucky's stomach growling as he shifted around, unable to find a position comfortable enough to take his mind off it. _My teeth? That ain't nothing, Stevie._

Neither of them had any real measure of rest that night. The words kept coming back to him, and as Steve listened to his friend gasping and shivering as an unnamed hunger ate away at him, he started to have some understanding of what Bucky might have meant.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is still a rough draft. Please pardon our dust, we're remodeling as we go along, I guess.

During the night, Bucky's eyes adjusted enough to allow him to slip off the bandanna. As the morning sun began to leak in silver-blue puddles between the flaps of the tent, his vision became a little fuzzy as he felt the singe from the light, but it came slowly enough that he was able to keep from shielding his eyes again. At least, for now.

A few feet over, separated by the dust-glimmering stripe of sun, Steve rolled over in his sleep to tuck his arm further beneath the pillow. The rose-soft expanse of his shoulder flexed with the movement, and if he squinted, Bucky could almost imagine the fragile wings of Stevie's shoulder blades in Brooklyn, rattling with his labored breathing. The spine had been straightened, the scapulas blanketed over with muscle. If he listened, he could even hear his friend's heart from across the room. Solid, rhythmic, no hint of a murmur or trip in its pacing. Bucky felt his insides sear with another cramp and he squeezed his eyes shut and struggled to keep his breath steady. He listened to Steve's pulse and counted out the beats while he waited for the pain to ease again.

_16, 17... 18..._

He couldn't help the groan that escaped when the cramp tightened, and he bit a twist of his blanket to stifle the sound.

_19... 20... **21...**_

He counted out 36 beats before he could breathe without wanting to scream.

A long time back, he could remember a fever that felt a little like this. _Stop. Don't think of home now. God, if they knew-- if Becca knew--_

This time, the groan he muffled was one of shame and no small measure of despair. Even if they went home, even if they won the whole damn war and returned as heroes, Bucky could never really go _home_. He knew that now. Forget finding a cure or neutralizing whatever Zola had poisoned him with, there was no facing his family after what he'd done. Seeing Steve was bad enough.

As if sensing his friend's grief, the blonde man shifted in his sleep a little before groggily blinking at him in the morning gloom.

"Buck?" he asked, and his voice sounded raspy, not unlike it used to after a cigarette. "You okay?"

_No, Stevie. Not anymore._

"'M good. Go back to sleep."

Punk that he is, he sits up instead and stretches. Jesus, the size of him, now.

Bucky tries to sit up himself, but ends up doubled over clutching his stomach again. Realizing the pain he must be in, Steve quickly sits beside him, one arm slung round his shoulders while he smoothes back Buck's hair.

"Alright," Steve says, and Bucky recognizes the tone, almost chuckles to himself that his buddy now has the physique to back up that deep and serious timbre, because he hadn't before but it never stopped him then, either.

"You need to tell me what's happening," he says, "You promised last night and God, Buck, you look worse than you did before. I need you to be honest with me."

Steve swallows hard and then, "Are.. are you dying?"

"Little late for that," he can't help but retort, grimacing when his stomach growls painfully.

He feels Steve go still beside him. "What does that mean?"

Heaving a sigh, Bucky sits up as best he can, leaving his left hand to press against his belly as if it could somehow quell the pangs of hunger.

"Zola," he whispers, voice catching on that damned name, "he... he experimented. On us, I mean. On... on me."

Steve, to his credit, only nods for him to continue.

_How do I say this? Your friend died and I'm the godless monster wearing his corpse? I'm dead? Unclean? Damned?_

"You saw my teeth."

Steve nods.

"They... I..." Bucky takes a moment to cover his face with his hands as the unspoken weight sinks around them.

"It's okay, Buck. Take your time."

Steve has a rare gift, Bucky has found over the years, of knowing how to listen. He waits, legs wide, leaning forward with hands loosely held between his knees, head canted a bit to the side. It's easy, open. Almost enviably collected; like he knows what you'll say before you say it, and he has no intentions of judging you because of it. A man could confess his worst faults to a steady rock like that. It should almost be an interrogation technique.

Bucky looks down at his own hands instead, and tries hard not to remember what it looked like, felt like, to examine the grit and dried blood beneath his nails; the abrasions raw on the heels of his palms and his fingertips where he clawed for purchase against the door. Begging to be released, let go. Before it got worse. Before he got worse--

_Before he gave in to it, the hunger, pulling at him like hook in his stomach, and God, all he wanted was behind him, just a bite, he could end it if he--_

_'Hey,' throat clears behind him but the voice is thready and weak, 'what's wrong with you?'_

_Gold hair and thin wrists as smooth and straight as a paintbrush, **Buck, you're scarin' me, I'm the one who's s'posed to get sick, remember?**_

_He's going to kill him if he can't find a way out, somewhere, anywhere, and already his nails are torn to the bed._

_'You hungry? 'Cause I got this--' Indistinct, mumbling, and Bucky leans his head against the cold wall and begs himself to think a way out of this._

_The air is heavy with the reek of blood and he is aching like a pit has fallen through in his belly and he bites the inside of his cheek hard in order to focus--_

Focus.

"Bucky?"

Two hands on his face and suddenly he is overwhelmed with the smell of blood, and like a kick to the gut he scrambles away with a hoarse plea:

"N-No, stay there. S-Stay away from me," he begs, "It's not safe."

Every muscle is trembling with the effort of keeping still, keeping it reigned in, controlled. _I am a monster,_ he thinks desperately, _but I can choose to act like a human being. I can still control myself. They did not break my humanity, only my body._

"You 'member," Bucky rasped, "those magazines? Those old pulp magazines my Pa kept stacked by the door?"

Steve thought for a moment, brow furrowed. "The ones your mom would never let us read because she said they'd give us nightmares?"

Bucky might've laughed but it dissolved quickly into a cough. "Those are the ones. Read 'em anyway and told a few of those stories to Becca, scared her half to death."

The soldier's eyes went unfocused with the memory, and Steve knows with an unfamiliar wrench of his heart that this is going nowhere good.

"Bucky?" he asks gently.

His friend swallows and turns to look him dead in the eye. "I give myself nightmares now, sometimes."

Steve's eyebrows get that little crease, just there, in his confusion. "So do I, Buck," he mumbles.

"You ain't killed any of your own men, Stevie."

The words are out before he can stop them and Bucky feels his hunger dim behind sudden nausea.

He just waits. Steve just waits. Bucky wishes he'd say something, do something, hit him, hurt him, _anything_ but look at him that way, with sympathy like that's anywhere near what he deserves.

"Did you want to?" he asks, after a long moment. The cold blue of his eyes is so stark against his cheeks that Steve looks for a moment like some kind of avenging angel, and Bucky would consign himself to hell if it meant avoiding the horror and disappointment that he knows he'll see reflected there the longer this conversation takes.

Did he want to? It's not even a question he can answer. He wanted to stop the pain. He wanted to survive. He wanted to be released. He didn't want to kill anyone to do it.

As if reading his thoughts, Steve rephrases his question and it becomes a moot point. "They made you do it, didn't they."

There's barely a moment's relief for him before Steve asks, "How? How did they do it?"

"They made me into a monster."

The sun is up, now, and the sounds of the camp are filtering in, but the normalcy of it is too much a contrast to the sudden impossibility of Bucky's situation.

"Your teeth..." Steve mumbles, and he covers his mouth with one hand in shock, straightening his posture. He's connecting the dots, now, but a part of him wants to cringe at the picture he's almost certain it makes.

Bucky nods.

"Those stories, back home... the books your Dad had, the ones about-- about--"

"You can say it," Bucky says quietly.

"You need blood," Steve realizes, eyes widening as he turns to examine the sickly pallor of his oldest friend. Bucky coughs again and nods, folding further around his aching stomach.

"That," he rasps, "Or you could put a stop to it."

A metallic bitter taste floods Steve's mouth when he realizes what is being asked of him. "That ain't an option."

"Steve," he sighs, "It's the _only_ option."

It's a thought he refuses to accept, even if in his deepest heart Steve knows Bucky believes it to be true.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just what IS Bucky, now, exactly? Even HYDRA doesn't know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh no. Poor Bucky. HYDRA is the worst.
> 
> Sorry if my timeline isn't canon for the length of Bucky's captivity; all I know is he was rescued by our intrepid Captain on November 3, 1943.

_**S.V. Winternacht IVII:**   _Ahnenerbe exp. Val Camonica, samples lifted, blood present.  Compare w/ samples from Altheim collection: Y, Langerzahn strain confirmed in both cases, untoten virus distilled and administered.  44 deaths within 8 hrs. of injection.  1 present subject remains: Sgt. JBB  Further examination and testing req.__

 

** _Entry: October 10th, 1943_ **

_**Subject:** J. Barnes, 107th (U.S. infantry 32557038)_

_**Date of detainment:** Sept. 22nd_

__**Status:** ~~Alive~~   ~~Deceased: 18:14, Serum Incomp.~~   Revived, partial lividity, serum responsive ~~~~  
  
           Pulse: N  
           Respiration: Y  
           Cognition: Mild Impairment, temporary  
           Neur. Resp.: Stimulation; reflex; pain

_**Assessment:** 1st success, serum v. winternacht IVII survival likely, though apparent health compromised by injection.  Subject exhibits signs of extreme stress response and delirium, shock, chills.  _

_**Physiological Anomalies:** Sustained loss of cardiac function.  Respiration present with questionable necessity; severe photosensitive reaction, lowered basal core temperature consistent with symptoms of hypothermia, etc.  Slight dental malformation._

_**Notes:** Sub. in sustained discomfort.  Discoloration present at injection site, visible tissue damage and deterioration of surrounding vascular network.  Cognition shows marked improvement/recognition._

 

_ **Entry: October 14th, 1943**   
_

_**Subject:**  J. Barnes, 107th (U.S. infantry 32557038)_

_**Date of detainment:**  Sept. 22nd_

**_Status:_ ** _serum resp., vitals unchanged_

**_Assessment:_ ** _S.V. Winternacht confirmed successful.  Stress responses present, lucidity regained._

**_Physiological anomalies:_ ** _Persistent absence of cardiac function; experimental vivisection recommended to determine cause/observe other possible internal adaptations.  Low basal temp. and dental malformation likely permanent. Photosensitivity inconsistent but acute when present._

 

**_Notes:_ ** _Sub. in sustained discomfort.  Possible metabolic repercussions; increased appetite.  Tissue damage and lividity markedly improved._

 

** _Entry: October 15th, 1943_ **

 

**_Notes:_ ** _Sub. suffering from signs of starvation.  Rations increased yesterday, no effect.  Possible ruse to distract from recurrent internal examinations, as anesthesia proves ineffectual.  Research of Langerzahn s. Untoten serum components suggests dental malformation may pose an alternate explanation:  Metabolic processes may be in flux.  Confirm via internal examination during tomorrow's vivisection._

 

**_Entry: October 16th, 1943_ **

 

**_Notes:_ ** _Confirmed metabolic alteration due to serum.  Live feed to be provided.  Relocate subject to containment unit for further observation and feeding, per A.Z._

 

**Observation Log: S.32557038 Winternacht**

_Audio monitoring system_

**A:**  He's still just sitting there.

 **B:**  It'll do it, just wait.

 **A:** It's creepy.  He's just watching him, you know?  He hasn't moved in an hour at least.

 **B:** Just  _wait._   I'm telling you.  See how it's kinda rocking just a little bit?

 **A:** No...?  Wait-- yeah, okay.  Yeah.  God, how'd you even catch that?

 **B:** I've been stuck on third watch for the last month, Greta, what do you think?  It's not like I can sit here and read a book.  They watch everything.   _Hear_ everything.  If I'm not keeping an eye on it, I'll pay for it 'cause they're keeping an eye on  _me._   Hey, I get that you're new to this, but let me introduce you to the first rule about third watch:  You gotta  _watch_.  Observe.  Besides, it's not all bad.  After a few days of waiting, you get some crazy shit going down in there.  This thing'll eat anyone if it gets hungry enough.

 **A:** Ewwww, are you serious?

 **B:** Totally serious.  My brother kept a spider in a jar in the garage once when we were growing up.  Sometimes he'd trap flies in there; watch it eat 'em.  They stop struggling and * _snap*_    Just like that.  It's all over.

**(silence)**

**A:** Heinrich... I think he's crying.

**B: It.**

**A:** What?

 **B:** Alright, second rule?  You're not going to refer to that creature as a person.

 **A:** How can you say that?  He had a name, a home... Heinrich, he still wears his tags for God's sake.  He's crying.  Look at him.

 **B:** Give me your hand.

 **A:** I don't--

 **B:** You feel that?

 **A:** Yes, but what does that have to--

 **B:** I have a pulse.  You have a pulse. Human beings are alive; we have a pulse, Greta.  That thing in there?  It doesn't.

**(silence)**

**A:** It doesn't?

 **B:** No.  Because it isn't human.  Its eyes are easily damaged by the light, they're probably just watering because we left that sconce on by the door to watch it eat.  It's dim to us, but it takes a long time before its vision can adjust even to that.

 **A:** It looks sad.

 **B:** You know what looks sad?  That poor French bastard stuck in there with him.  Doesn't even know he's dinner.  At least we're cutting down the frog population, I guess.  Zola better know what the Hell he's doing.

 **A:** How... how many has it eaten?

 **B:** Oh, a few by now.  It wouldn't, at first.  It still waits forever.  Cruel, isn't it?  Making that guy wait for days before it kills him?  Nothing human would torture someone like that.

 **A:** I guess...  But... what if he-- _it--_ doesn't want to eat people?

 **B:** Oh, come on.  We could toss philosophy around all night.  What is or isn't a person, whether that thing in there has a soul or a--  _ **Oh,**_ shit, we've got movement.

 **A:** What's it doing?

 **B:** What it always does before eating.  I think it's looking for exits, making sure its prey won't escape.

 **A:** Oh my God, that's awful.

**(silence)**

**B:** It's been twenty minutes.  I want some action.  Come on already.

**(silence)**

**A:**   Jeez, it doesn't look so good.  Kinda like those bears in the zoo, you know?  They pace like that, too.  Maybe it's going mad.

 **B:** Not too long now.  Hey, wanna bet a mark it'll snap the guy's neck first?

 **A:** That's not even fair, you've spent more time than me watching it.  You know what it'll-- Oh,  _gross._   Good thing I didn't take the bet.

**(silence)**

**(silence)**

**(silence)**

**A:** That's strange.  It's been hours.  You'd think its eyes would adjust by now.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A solution, perhaps? You'd better hurry, Steve.

So, blood then.  He could do that.  He could do that, no problem.  Right?

 

Except, what if his blood wouldn't work?  Erskine's serum was a marvel, but what if it was poisonous?  What if he made Bucky sick?  Steve weighed the risks in his mind for a moment, but was only further distracted by his friend.

Bucky had pulled himself up into a fetal position on his cot, shivering, sweating.  His eyes had that far-away look again, staring through Steve toward some point in the mid-distance, or something within himself.

A memory maybe, from the way he flinched.

"Buck."

Nothing.

"Bucky."

Nothing.

Steve shook his friend's shoulder gently, and Bucky looked up at him, almost startled to see him there.

"Bucky, I want to help you, but I don't... I'm not sure..."

With a slight nod, Bucky cleared his throat, "I know, Stevie, it's okay.  I told you last night that you'd do the right thing, didn't I?  Well," he pushed himself up shakily, "I'm ready, so now's as good a time as any."

Desperately praying for patience, Steve narrowly avoided cussing.  He settled for raking frustrated fingers through his hair before he trusted himself to speak in a more reassuring tone:

"I'm not killing you, Buck.  I just got you back, for Pete's sake.  I don't know how bad they scrambled you up in there to make you think I'd do so much as hurt you, but... Geez, Bucky.  Give me a little more credit than that.  I just meant... the serum.  I don't know if it's in my blood or how it would affect you if it were, so I'm wondering if we have any other options."

The brunet went pale, then, and barely whispered, "You don't--you wouldn't-- Steve, I can't h-hurt anybody else, okay?"

"No!  I'm not saying that, exactly, even though I could argue they probably deserve it if they're HYDRA.  Had I known, I might've saved you a few for the road."

"Steve, that isn't funny.  How," he swallowed hard, "how'm I gonna eat?  If you don't do something to stop me, at some point I won't even realize what I'm doing.  It gets that bad.  Trust me, we need to find a plan before then, and that's not as far off as I'd like, so maybe plan A is our best option.  I wouldn't blame you, Steve.  The world still thinks I'm dead now anyway."

He pulled his friend's hand against his chest; Steve's eyes widened in alarm at its utter stillness.

"...and they'd be right."

"Buck, no. I can't. At least, not yet. Give me--Give me an hour.  Okay?  One hour to find a solution."

"Are you listening to me at all?  It's over, Steve.  It's already done.  I died months ago.  I just need you to," a choked sob, almost a helpless laugh, "remind me, I guess.  I took the stupid with me after all, huh?  Can't even die right."

Wordlessly, Steve pulled him into the tightest hug he could muster, desperately trying to silence and comfort him at the same time, but after a moment, Bucky groaned.

"S-Stop," he panted, "I can't--the smell, it's too much.  The blood."

Nodding, Steve released him.

"One hour," Bucky whispered.  "No men, no donations from medical.  And Stevie," Cap raised his eyes, and Bucky gave him a stony gaze, "if you can't find anything?  You do it.  No exceptions, no hesitating."

"No donations?  But-- No, okay, that's.  One hour.  Okay."  He set his hand against Bucky's cheek, briefly, watching his friend lean into the touch.  He was freezing.

"I'll be right back," he said.  "Don't you dare leave me yet."

"M'not trying to, Steve.  I'll hold on as long as I can.  I swear."

With that, he watched as Steve ducked out of the tent and listened as his quickened steps faded into the discord of the waking troops.  The hunger gripped him like a fever, and Bucky tried turning to the prayers he'd learned as a child for comfort, but found the thought of them like daggers in his heart.  

_I'm either damned already or too afraid to remember._

The commotion outside distracted him from his misery, and he tried to match voices to faces in his mind.  Anything to keep it off the burn in his stomach.  

 _Dum Dum and Morita,_ he thought, hearing them bicker.  It was easy to tell their voices from the din by their familiarity, so he started to challenge himself with voices outside the immediate scope of his (former) social circle.

 _Jones, Rafferty, Kaminski, Schunemann.  Bartell.  Sikes._ There's a sudden wintergreen sting on the air, followed by something Bucky recognizes instantly, and he grinds his teeth as the scent hits him with a brutal twist of his insides.  Between the menthol and the blood, he can guess that someone nearby has nicked themselves with a razor, and he involuntarily inhales, going dizzy with the rush of wanting.

 _Emmerson,_ his mind supplies,  _Emmerson is bleeding. God, it's so--_

Voice hoarse with effort, he moans, "No.   _Stop it."_

It's harder to keep himself still than it is to move.  Where before he'd felt weakened by starvation, now it's as if every cell is focused on the blood he can almost taste with every inhalation, ready to react with deadly speed.  Telling his body to stand down is like telling himself to stop seeing with his eyes open.  Stop feeling the touch of clothing on his body, or knowing his own name.  It takes more strength than he knew he possessed to keep him from pursuing that scent.  God, Steve had better come back with a miracle or a coffin because if he has to handle much more of this, he might up and die on his own.

Finally, he heard the heavy footfalls of his friend, and recognized the strange, gamy odor of some animal or other. Sure enough, Steve entered moments later with a dead rabbit in hand.

"Will this help?" Steve's voice was so concerned, so serious, but there he was standing like an overgrown schoolboy with a hare in hand, already looking sorry he'd killed it.

He was so unsure of himself, so reminiscent of the Steve he'd lost back in Brooklyn, that Bucky couldn't help the raw chuckle that escaped him, even if it dissolved into a cough.

"Not sure, really," Bucky rasped, pushing himself upright. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "They never gave me animals. Once they got that I couldn't survive on rations, they... y-you know. I didn't get a choice, then, what to... Um..."

"I got it, Buck, you don't have to explain. Should we give it a try?"

Bucky shrugged. "I don't really see another option, do you?"

Returning the shrug, Steve held out the limp body of the rabbit and watched with slight morbid fascination as his friend inspected it. He gave it a delicate sniff and immediately recoiled, but on noting Steve's dismay, he rushed to placate him. "No! It's good, it's fine, I just-- It doesn't smell like what I'm used to, I guess. That's probably not a bad thing, right? Thank you for this. Stevie, I can't even tell you."

"Might want to save the gratitude until after we're sure it works."

Bucky cleared his throat awkwardly. After a moment, Steve got the hint and with a startled 'oh', he turned around and began to pretend to examine the maps and papers left in a pile near his cot. He didn't know what he'd expected, really. Animalistic growls? Snarls? Wet slurping? Okay, maybe not that, but he didn't expect it to be so quiet. Bucky hardly made a sound. Concerned that something might be wrong, Steve finally turned around in time to see Bucky setting down the rabbit beside him and wiping his mouth with his shirt. He looked... uneasy.

"You... Uh, are you done?"

Bucky nodded a little, which did nothing to allay Steve's fears. He wouldn't lift his head, and pretended to pick at the canvas of the cot beneath him while he spoke: "Yeah. You shouldn't waste the meat, Steve. It could be skinned and butchered, right?  Don't let it have died for nothin'."

 _It's not nothing if it keeps you alive, Buck._ "Did it work?"

A beat passed before Bucky lifted his eyes to meet Steve's gaze, and there was an artificiality to it that set his teeth on edge. Something was a little too schooled in his easygoing smile. It was the same smile Bucky turned on the dames when he rambled some excuse to leave off early the nights Steve was sick. He'd just never expected Bucky to use it on him.

"It did the trick. Look," he said, easily rising to his feet, "I'm good as new. Guess that means I owe you a few, right? You keep savin' my life like this, I might get an inferiority complex."

"Well, how about we give this one a pass since apparently your heart isn't beating, huh? Couldn't technically save your life, so your dignity is intact."

At the slight edge of regret in Steve's otherwise jovial tone, Bucky frowned. He pulled him forward into an embrace and sighed.

"Goddammit, Stevie. You can't carry every little thing on your shoulders, alright? I don't care if they're broad enough now, it still ain't practical. There was nothing you could've done, okay?"

"Sure, Buck. Sure."

They stepped apart and Steve took the offered rabbit, which made Bucky crack a sad but more genuine grin.

"At least it looks like we both get breakfast," he said with a shrug.

As Steve turned to leave and prepare the rabbit, he did a double-take. For a moment, in the corner of his eye, it had look like Bucky was going to be sick.

"Are you alright?"

And just like that, it was gone. The illusory smile was back in place.

"Takes a little getting used to, is all. I'm okay, Steve. If you wanna channel your ma I'd rather you made breakfast than kept fussing over me. Get on outta here, lemme get changed. Your nagging is makin' me homesick."

Unconvinced but unable to argue, Steve ducked out of the tent and started to skin the rabbit next to the fire pit. Inside, Bucky swallowed hard and dropped to his cot again palming his stomach. The pain was gone, that much was true. The hunger's keen edge had been blunted, but in its place was a clammy nausea. Still, at least it wasn't human. At least it wasn't Steve's. As long as that held true, who cared if he felt a little ill? Not Bucky. Nope.

 _I'm okay,_ he told himself,  _I'm fine.  I'm gonna be fine._

Steve had seen right through that bull, he knew.  He'd never been good at lying. 

Not even to himself.


	6. Chapter 6

It's cold, always.  He wishes he were used to it by now, but somehow his body just can't adjust.  It's the same with the light, sometimes.  He's got tinted glasses to help with the glare, but there are days when it gets so bad he has to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes to press against the migraine.

It's the constant, driving emptiness that's the worst.

He knows he isn't starving.  The rabbits, squirrels, even the deer Steve shot for him have been keeping him 'alive' better than he could have hoped.  It isn't the same cutting agony he'd felt on the trek back to camp that first night, thank Christ.  But it's there, insistent, tugging at him at the worst moments, and it never goes away.  The blood is doing less and less to ease it, now.  There's a voice that keeps telling him what he doesn't want to hear-  _it isn't enough-_ and the voice is getting louder the longer this goes on.

But Bucky has charisma in spades; has always been quick with a white lie and a charming smile.  He knows how to wheedle out of Steve's scrutiny, although avoiding it altogether is next to impossible.  His friend is always the one man capable of seeing through the bullshit, but somehow always the one Bucky tries to pull one over on; mostly because Steve is a worrier.  He worries, okay?  And he's got enough to worry about on his star-spangled plate without adding Bucky's issues to the top of the pile.

So he holds out.  Okay, so the blood doesn't go down so easy these days.  It's not the biggest problem, or at least not _yet_ it isn't.  It'd be okay, maybe, if that were as bad as it got.  It's not, though, and Bucky's mired in the refusal to face it head on.  More and more, he starts to feel it all creeping back up again in a well of nausea.  He hasn't gotten sick just yet; but he knows that's what it'll take to finally admit to himself that this isn't working. 

At least, he hopes that's what it'll take.  He'd rather toss his guts out in the woods than snap under the pressure of passing by the medic, or field-dressing one of his men.  Sometimes, the smell is so overpowering he goes dizzy with it.  The first few times it happened, he could tell Steve knew what was causing it.  He'd find himself coming to several yards away behind a tree or a trench somewhere, with Roger's frantic muttering and clammy hands all over him,  _Wake up, c'mon Bucky, you're scarin' me... Buck, wake up... It's just a little blood, Bucky, you big sap, open your eyes or I swear I'll tell the boys you fainted, I mean it...  Wake up..._

When he finally does wake, it only slightly lessens Steve's panic.  He's been told, many times over now, how pale he gets.  How his breath goes shallow and his hands shake, and he looks near scared to death and gutshot all at once.  It doesn't surprise him, given how it feels.  Steve makes him drink, after these episodes.  It doesn't help much, but he says it does, and they both pretend he's right.

There's a wall building between them.  Brick by brick, Bucky's denial is fueling Steve's withdrawal.  It's the dame that really puts the nail in the proverbial coffin, though.  Steve's distracted, and when Bucky finally gets the chance to see her himself in that bar, he knows why.  He can hardly blame him.  Bucky feels it like heatstroke; sees the crimson lipstick and his mind provides him, instantly and involuntarily, with the sudden sight of his own mouth covered with blood in the tarnished steel of a medical tray, where a dirty scalpel and sodden gauze only partly obscure the view of the dead body on the gurney a few stations over.  The lab techs at least cover the face with a sheet before carting it off, and he has a moment to wonder if he will be next.  His teeth keep growing in, sharper than before, every time they pull them out.  It was the same, too, with that dead kid... before the serum burned him up from the inside.  Bucky can already feel the itching in his muscles.  He runs his tongue along the seam of his gums and the smooth tiles of his teeth, cuts it again by accident, and he shivers when he realizes his own blood has started turning sickly sweet in his mouth.  He hopes it is his imagination.  He wants to spit it out, but finds himself swallowing instead.

Steve's hand is heavy on his back, and Bucky escapes his flashback in time to play nice with Steve's new squeeze.

The dame, Peggy, is waiting for the right partner.  So was Bucky, once upon a time.  Too late for that now.

He's got a bad feeling about this mission, but he's made up his mind before Steve can even ask: Of course, yes, and how could he not?   _That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight?  I'm following him_.  Because at least one of them should remember who they were, even if it isn't who they are anymore.  Bucky can't forget, can't stop cataloging the changes they've endured to get to this point.  If Peggy can take Steve and his valor and his new and improved patriotic ass outta this place, then Bucky will step back and let her.  He's a monster, and there is no returning home for him.  Steve, on the other hand, has only become a truer, purer version of his own perfect self.  There is no reason to sacrifice what might be the very last bit of goodness in this damn world in order to save it.  What would be the point?

But those are bigger questions, and when Bucky finds himself falling from that train, it's a long enough drop for him to pray that Steve will still make it back to Brooklyn somehow, and that his family will never know what became of James Buchanan Barnes.  Let them think he died as a soldier, a friend, a man.

 

***

 

When he wakes, it's to more glinting metal and white lights.  Cold.  Pain.   _Oh_ , he thinks, and understands.  

_Him the Almighty Power_  
_Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky_  
_With hideous ruin and combustion down_  
_To bottomless perdition, there to dwell_  
_In adamantine chains and penal fire,_  
_Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms._

It was stupid to imagine, after all that he had done, that he would end up anywhere but here.  Sister Catherine warned him so many times.  He wonders if she would laugh to see him now.  The cutting pain at his chest makes him reach-- and he sees, for the first time, what has been done to him in the ache of his ruined shoulder and the whirring of this abomination grafted to his body.  He can feel the mechanical structure beneath his skin, extending in a scaffold along his ribs and spine.  They will replace him piece by piece, he thinks deliriously, and they started in Azzano.  They started with his soul.

He grips the throat of the closest man.  If he has already been damned, then there's no reason to act with caution or mercy.  No reason at all to care for the lives of his captors.  He drags the screaming lab assistant closer and tears the collar from around his own neck.  When he finally sinks his fangs into him, the man shudders and goes limp, and for the first time since he can really remember, the vice around his stomach eases.  The hunger is extinguished like hot coals in a tide, and the relief is so overwhelming he can feel tears on his cheeks.  

Hands, all over him, and a sharp sting in his neck.  Voices.  Darkness. Drowning.

When he wakes up again, his hands are bound and strapped across his chest, and when he tries to open his mouth to speak, he can't.  He panics, and feels four sharp points of pain in his mouth... He turns his head, cranes his neck, looking for a reflective surface, and sees the silver-paneled light fixture right above him.  Drawing back his lips, it takes a moment, then he realizes what he's looking at:  There are two thin chains, running vertically between his canines and first molars, top to bottom.  They are anchored, somehow, to points drilled into the bone between the roots of his teeth, and the gum tissue around them is still raw and inflamed.  He has enough slack in the chains to open his jaw a little, barely enough for a straw to get through.  It makes sense, but also brings a flare of desperate anxiety: If he can't bite, how will they keep him alive?

As if in answer, he recognizes the man approaching through the lab doors.  Zola.  His horror is tempered in the smallest measure: there is an IV stand, with two drips prepared.  One, a deep claret red that stirs the now-familiar pain in his stomach.

The other is translucent blue. 

Bucky turns his gaze back to the light fixture above him.  The scientists flick it on, blinding him, and his body tenses, but in his mind, Bucky runs.  He leaves his body and all of its horror to rot on the table, and he thinks of Brooklyn, of melting snow on the fire escape and homemade quilts to wrap himself in.  The docks.  Steve's sketch pad.  Dancing with Marcie Vaughn.  Coney island. 

He is not here. 

He is not here. 

The smell of seared bone and marrow assaults him, in a haze he can hear one of them mention that they need to readjust the hydraulics affixed to the salvaged parts of his coracoid process, and he turns to vomit, but the chains pull tight in his mouth and there's nothing for him to throw up anyway.  

 


	7. Chapter 7

It starts with 'Sputnik.'

The soldier cannot remember how it knows this command was the first, but it is not difficult to understand why.

 

 

There is a certain time limit that must be adhered to when it comes to missions.  The Winter Soldier is strong, capable, and diligent, but it is a machine and machines must be maintained.  Zola reminded them frequently what would happen if the soldier was active for longer than six days without maintenance, but do they listen? No.  It's their own damn fault.  They're ruining his work by running the Asset into the ground each time it performs.

The programming is so ingrained that the Asset has never failed a mission, but a late return on the sixth day or pushing it to the seventh causes the soldier to break down with frightening rapidity.  Exhaustion saps its strength, it loses the ability to obey without hesitating and commands must be repeated in order to force it to comply.  Its primary objective moves from the target to prey.  If it weren't for the chains acting as a muzzle, it's certain that Hydra would have lost a significant amount of operatives on the field.

Eight days into a mission in Zagreb, the Asset is malfunctioning.  It has a tremor in its hands that has lasted several days now, and it is extremely difficult to think clearly through the haze of pain and intense hunger.  One of the agents has a wounded leg, and the air is saturated with the smell of blood.

When it finally lines up the shot and the mark is hit, the Asset's eyes roll back and it collapses, seizing, before Reynolds says, "Oh, goddammit.  See?  I told you.  What did the dossier say?  Six days, max.  Zola's gonna kill us."

As they are dragging it toward the rendezvous point at the pier, suddenly it shudders in their grasp and the two men carrying it drop the Asset immediately.  The soldier groans, but they're too scared of it to approach.

It very shakily pushes itself up before lunging desperately at the wounded agent, who screams.  So much for professionalism and subtlety.  

 

 

When the group of them finally returns to the lab, the man with the bandaged leg is white as a sheet and still dissociated with terror.  There is bruising beneath the injury, where the soldier had grabbed him.  It had let go only after another agent shot it a couple times in the thigh, (he probably hadn't needed more than one shot, but better safe than sorry.)  He justified shrugging it off as irrelevant because the serum would heal it eventually.

The Asset is brought in on a gurney.  Its entire body is trembling, breath coming only in shallow pants, muscles clenched in excruciating pain.  It is moaning a little through its locked teeth, and it's clear what a close call this was: The moorings of the chains in the soldier's mouth are still there, but one has pulled loose and the others have torn through the gums.  Its jaw has cracked under the strain.  A bullet is still lodged in its leg but the soldier cannot bleed anymore; it has nothing left.  It is closer than it has ever been to real death.

When Zola sees the shape it's in, he clucks his tongue and huffs, "What is this?  Do you know the damage you've done?  Months of work, replacing the bite guards, and all the physical conditioning is ruined.  This is the last time, you hear me?"

The other agents sneer back at him, "Maybe if you kept that thing on a shorter leash, we wouldn't have to be out there so long!  Burnham got his leg nearly chopped in two, and the quote-un-quote  _Asset_ is defective if someone bleeds after four days.  You want it returned in working order?  Well, then you'd better figure out a way to drop that thing without physical force if this happens again, because let me tell you:  A week ain't long enough for an operation on that scale.  Fix it.  My CO is going to want it up and running within two weeks for the Gdansk hit and nobody will work with it if it's just waiting to try and eat us."

Zola curses under his breath, then eyes The Chair thoughtfully.  He hasn't executed the Red Star programming yet.  It's all hypothetical, not even a finished proposal, but if he could start small, perhaps he could build a case for more extensive neural re-mapping if he is successful.

The soldier is given an IV blood transfusion, just enough to bring it back from the brink, before it is taken again to Zola for what would be the first of many long, torturous procedures.

Three weeks later in Gdansk, it is the seventh day and the team seems unconcerned, but the Asset is struggling to maintain focus.  The next morning, it cannot keep its gaze from drifting to a window across the street from their position.  One of the men notices that the younger girl in the apartment had accidentally nicked her thumb while chopping apples, and when he realizes the cause of the soldier's discomfort, he elbows a few of his comrades and they laugh.  The Asset tries to slow its breathing, tear its eyes and attention from the window, and line up the shot.  When it pulls the trigger, it is caught off guard when its stomach cramps, and the shot goes wide.  The agents howl with laughter.  As the soldier painfully uncurls itself to sit upright again, it fires a second round and the mark drops.

_Finally._

It turns, furious, and starts to rise to its feet, and the laughter startles into silence.  A creak of stressed metal sounds from the soldier's clenched fist, and whatever desperation or fury they can read in its eyes is enough to prompt a collective recoiling.  The Asset takes a step forward, and Reynolds barks, 'Sputnik!'

It drops bonelessly to the floor.

***

The electric current flashes through its tendons, sears the circuitry in its arm and causes the scarring to smoke around its shoulder.  The mouth guard breaks, and while it is still suffering aftershocks, the rubber pallet is removed and the chains are snapped back into place in its teeth.  These days, they're more for show and to put other minds at ease than they are for actual protection.  It has acclimated to the pain, and it's given a few drugs regularly that blur its mind and mute its aggression.  They barely give it enough blood to survive.  It doesn't matter, anymore, how long it has been between IV transfusions.  Without eating, its strength diminishes and it may eventually lose consciousness, but it has not been distracted from the mission in a long, long time.  There are consequences to showing weakness or wanting.  It knows that now.

_Longing.  Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight car._

It is ready to comply.

***

This handler doesn't appreciate the bite guards.  He allows the soldier to speak, even, on occasion.  The chains are removed but in their place is a black muzzle.  Hardly a step up, but there is one significant benefit.

The mask can be removed.  And, for the first time, a handler is allowing it to use its teeth to its advantage.

Rain is blanketing the windows of the van, but its keen vision can still track the mark.

_The victim._

It's been happening more often, those intrusive thoughts.  Ever since it's been given instructions to dispatch of a target 'with whatever means you prefer, as long as it doesn't leave a mess.'  The years of starvation had not been kind to its physiology, but now, slowly, it has gained strength and speed, built muscle and heals far more rapidly, and as long as it is obeying and using its work as 'a gift to mankind,' there should be no hesitation.

It slips soundlessly into the downpour and sidles up behind the woman.  With a swift motion, it takes her and spins her against the wall of an alley.  When it lets her body drop, wipes its mouth with the back of its hand, it's as if the soldier can feel every individual raindrop beading on its skin.  It's  _warm_.  The feeling is overwhelming, and the soldier puts its back to the brick and slides down, letting its head tilt back so the rain mingles with the remaining blood on its lips.  The Asset is still, allowing itself this one momentary reprieve.  The heat is already cooling from its body, but the soldier waits it out, savoring every last second that it can.  When the warmth has finally ebbed, it's still buzzed from the feeling of satiety, until its gaze falls again on the rain-sodden woman, as cold as the soldier and just as dead.

_Monster._

There are voices yelling at it to move, to get back in the van.  The Asset complies, stares hard at the blood and rain flecking the back of its hands, and it wonders why there is a heaviness in its chest even though it'd felt so good to stop the cold.  The buzz seems to fade faster every time, and it leaves behind an uneasy weight.

The first time, it was a corrupt guerrilla leader preparing a revolt.  The fear-galloping heart made quicker work of it than the Asset had on its own; a rapid pulse practically forcing the blood down its throat, and it was very nearly high by the time it rejoined the cadre.  The evidence was smeared on its cheek, drying in its tangled hair, coloring its lips and breath, but it didn't care... at first.  Devoid of physical pain for the first time it could recall, the soldier sat silent on the flight back to the base, dizzy with wonder.  It had not realized that there was such a feeling as 'not in pain.' 

It should have known better.  That night, when the door of the cryo tank swung shut, the soldier began dreaming.

There was a field of red poppies, and a man with yellow hair and a muscular frame standing a ways off with his back to him.  There is a train whistle in the distance.

He looks down, and sees blood coating his hands up to his elbows.  'Steve?' he asks, and the man turns, looks at Bucky's hands, then back at his face.  The disappointment in his eyes is crushing, and Bucky tries to wipe it off on his shirt, but only succeeds in making the shirt bloody, too.

'Jesus, Bucky, how could you?'

 _I'm sorry,_ he wants to plead,  _I didn't mean to, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please forgive me--_ but he opens his mouth, and vomits blood, doubling over.  Every time he tries to speak, more of it pours out of him.  He collapses, and he cannot even look Steve in the eye.

'James?'

He knows that voice.  When he finally gets to his feet, Bucky is in his ma's kitchen in Brooklyn, and he takes his usual seat at the table.

'You okay, Jimmy?  You don't look well."  His mother is the only one, ever, to call him that name.  He feels a flush of comfort and is a little startled when he touches his cheek and his fingertips come away wet with tears.

"I'm okay, ma," he whispers, "I miss you, is all."

She looks at him a little confused, but shakes her head.  Across from him, Becca sticks out her tongue and crosses her eyes to playfully mock him.  Steve is sitting to his right, across the small square table from Bucky's mother.  He feels a gnawing in his belly, and the meal before him smells like home, peace, safety.

"Steve, do you want to say grace tonight?"

His friend nods, and they all clasp hands around the table.  Bucky fidgets a little.  The gnawing is getting worse.  He probably worked himself too hard at the docks, is all.  He's been putting in extra hours to pay back the loan he'd taken for Steve's medicine the last time he got pneumonia.

"Dear heavenly Father," Steve intones, and Bucky shudders.  Something is wrong.

"Bless this gift we are about to receive."

A flare of pain inside him.  Bucky bites his lip to keep from crying out.

"Bless the hands that prepared it."

This time, he cannot keep back his groan.  The pain is getting worse, and the hunger is digging claws into his insides.

"S-Stop," he gasps, "Steve, it hurts--"

His friend opens his eyes and gives him a stony glare.

"Like it hurt them, Buck?"

And there, behind Steve's shoulder, Bucky sees the face of the young man he'd been trapped with the first time in Azzano.  Lurching to his feet, Bucky tears his hands away and stumbles back.  More bodies appear, standing behind the table in solemn condemnation.

"I... I'm sorry..." he pleads, sinking to his knees.  He wraps his arms around his midsection and groans, "I didn't mean to... I didn't have a choice..."

Steve arches a brow, cocks his head,  "You didn't have a choice?  Is that true?"

Is it?  He can't tell anymore.  The hunger is acidly burning away inside him, and he is trying to breath, but the pain chokes him.

"Bucky?  Aren't you gonna have any?"  Becca stands and offers him a piece of bread, and as he reaches for it, he sees the veins beneath her skin run with a familiar blue and his eyes go wide with dread.

"Honey?"

His mother stands, blood falling in sheets from her torn throat, and that's the worst of it-- Bucky recoils in horror, watches Becca grin wide with sharp teeth, and then Steve is there, kneeling next to him, whispering and he strains to listen over the flood of _need_ twisting in him.

"You're stronger than the serum.  You have a choice.  You always had a choice."

"Stevie," he rasps, and as he says this he knows it's true, can feel it, "I'll starve.  I'll die if I don't."

His friend gets to his feet and looks down at him, shaking his head sadly, while Bucky tries hard not to writhe against the cramping.

"Better to die as a man than live as a monster, isn't it?"  And then it isn't Steve anymore, but Pierce, and the laboratory behind him comes into focus.

The Asset is shivering, confused, disoriented by the dream.  When they drag it to the chair, it struggles to pull meaning from the images and words it remembered, even as they fragment.

_Steve?  Who is Steve?_

The muzzle is slipped into place and the switch is flicked.  Electricity scrapes the last of the hurt and worry from his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a little brutal, and a little heavy on the imagery. If being electrocuted to within an inch of your life sounds unpleasant, please consider this your warning for graphic descriptions of the Chair.

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It has time, in the echoing quiet of its cell, to close its eyes and... watch.  There are flashes, sometimes, of color and light and sound.  It follows them, tries to track them.  Sometimes, it makes up stories about what it sees.

 

_Bucky, come play!_

 

Sometimes, they almost feel real.  But it knows that this must be a malfunction.  It is not allowed color, or speech, or light.

 

Secretly, though, and not often-  not when it knows it is being observed- it allows these things to come seeping through the clouded water of its mind.  It cannot make sense of what it sees.  It thinks, maybe, that it used to dream when it was debriefed and put in the cryo tank.  Perhaps this is what is left of those dreams.  Or maybe, it has misremembered.  Maybe it never dreamed at all.  It cannot be sure; it is not allowed to be certain of things that have not been given to it from someone else.

 

It is waiting.  The space between these two missions is too brief to justify cryofreezing the Asset, but long enough that it understands it will be put in the Chair before the next deployment.  It is dangerous to leave it here, chained, alone.  It cannot escape physically, but it begins to appreciate the images that leak through the fog. 

 

_A pier.  A big wheel, huge, with small seats that go around and around, lights blinking, excited laughter, whorls of pink spun sugar, and somewhere there is music.  The smell of popcorn, grease, and briny water. There is... somebody?  It is supposed to be with somebody.  It cannot remember who.  It looks around in confusion; lost._

 

It does not understand, but it watches, eyes adrift and wet.

 

_White frost tucked in the corners of a dirty window pane.  Creaking wooden stairs and sore muscles, with a heavy tin lunchbox in hand- wooden handle, maybe?- under the sodden weight of a snow-logged wool coat.  It is at the landing, panting but not tired, and the warm glow of excitement thrumming in its chest: there will be someone there.  The door opens, and the rug is threadbare, the walls are water-stained, familiar, the table is rickety and covered with curling paper and two plates waiting, full, still hot from the stove... it feels **joy** , and arms far too skinny wrap around it._

_Welcome home, Buck._

_Home.  Homecoming-_

The word breaks through the reverie with a jolt like white hot wires in its veins, and it cries out at the unexpected pain. When the shock finally fades, it lies shivering on the damp cement for a moment, tensed, not understanding how they  _knew_ , how they could punish it for only thinking of it...

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No... there were more... things.  More sounds, or thoughts...?  Something.  It thinks, it was.. a word?  Many words, some of them it knows, but others get lost in the shuffle as its brain reboots.

_Longing, rusted, furnace, daybr-_

It convulses, every part of it burning in electric tension.  Its mouth floods with a bitter flavor, the way it does sometimes in the Chair.

When it subsides again, it almost laughs.  It should have remembered what would happen. The physiological conditioned response took years to implant fully, and has been around a very long time.  _Wait._   It frowns.  No, it is not supposed to remember.  Cannot remember. 

The dripping continues, until it notices that the sound is different. 

 _pat.  pat.  pat._  

Tears, falling from face to floor.  _Oh._

The soldier pushes itself back up to sit leaning against the filthy wall.  It wants, (it is not allowed to want, but it does, it  _does_ ), to go back to the warm place.  It wants to know who held it, once.  What waited for it at the top of the stairs?  What, or who, was behind the door?  Had someone held this body without an intent to injure or manipulate it?  That was not possible.  Not in reality.  Nobody real would touch it in such a way and actually  _enjoy_ doing so, except that once, a little, even just alone in its own mind, it dares to think about it.  Can almost feel what it might be like, to be held.  To be welcome somewhere.  Maybe... maybe loved?  No, no, that was too far, but it could almost imagine being wanted.  It can pretend it was wanted.

It tries wrapping its arms around itself, longing to recapture how it felt to be embraced.  Cautiously, it sneaks a glance through the bars, but feels foolish. They would believe it was in pain; it was not unusual for it to sit like this when it had not been fed in too long.  They don't know that it is thinking, wondering.  They do not know that it wants.  If they did, it would be punished, and so it feels a bit rebellious, to pretend in secret that it is being comforted.  Its arm is cold, though, and metal cannot mimic what flesh would feel like.  It isn't like what it had hoped it would be, but it holds itself anyway, because it can.  Because it pretends, and they don't know.

 

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The night shift begins.  It cannot sleep anymore, but the dark is welcome.  The only light remaining is the red emergency sconce beside the door on the far end of the room, and a small green light in the corner of the surveillance camera.  The rest is quiet, except the echoing drips from the leaking spigot on the wall to its right.  The water collects, pools up and eventually reaches the drain in the floor.  It sighs in disinterest.  Tries to pull out of its body to somewhere else.

 

_I told you, you gotta swing out to the side more- like this.  See? You try._

_Naw, Buck, c'mon.  I'm no good at hitting.  Can't we just play checkers again?  I got a button big enough to replace that piece we lost._

_We?  We lost it, did we?  The way I 'member it, it was you who tossed the board when you couldn't beat me, wasn't it?_

_Yeah, well, you cheated._

_At checkers?  How do you cheat at checkers, Stevie?  You tell me.  I'm curious to know._

_You... You... well, you only play me when I'm sick in bed.  M'not thinkin' right._

_You never think right, Steve.  You've taken all the stupid we got and hoarded it with you in that bed of yours.  'Sides, you play better when you're sick.  You got fight in you from beating the flu, or fever, or whatever it is's got you laid up.  Lemme win once in a while._

_Jeez, Buck, if I went any easier on you, I'd be moving your pieces for you._

_Take that back, Rogers.  You take it back right now._

_Yeah?  Guess you'd better prove me wrong then.  I'll get the board._

_...Dammit, Rogers, you dirty trickster.  Gimme back that bat if we're goin' inside._

 

When the flash clears, it's sitting with its back against the wall, staring at the dripping spigot without seeing it at all.  Muscles are twitching from being held in one way for too long, and it eases its legs out straight; lets its hands rest slack in its lap.  Cheek to the frigid cement wall, it considers what it has just experienced.  The names, for some reason, it could not retain.  Thinking of them was like catching sand in a sieve; and though it sometimes felt it could grab hold, it was never for more than the briefest of moments.

Absently, it tongues the chains in its mouth.  A little more slack was allowed now, for good behavior and, it suspects, mostly because it has cracked too many of its molars in the Chair.  They needed a way to put something more substantial between its teeth to prevent further (and more expensive) repairs to its dentistry.

 

The door swings open.  It sits up a little straighter.  Three men enter; two with shades and guns flanking the third.

 

"On your feet.  Now."

 

It rises, shakily, and notes the familiar smell of sterilized bagged blood.  They wouldn't feed it before the Chair- what would be the point?  It would never stay down when the shock began.  But the fact they have it ready means it will be departing soon, likely before dawn.

It's handed a manila folder, and several other dossiers.  The Avengers, they're called.  It flips though a few of the pictures, and hesitates briefly at the third one, and then slows to a halt to stare at the fourth.  There is a sense of deja vu... Has it had this mission before?  It tries to recall, but then is keenly aware of its handlers' eyes watching its every move and expression.  Careful to give nothing away, it closes the folders and awaits orders.

"Casualty count will be high on this one.  They don't go down easy, this group.  I'd expect to take some serious damage, but try to spare the equipment, alright?  You'll heal; a totaled vehicle, not so much."

It nods.

"Oh, and here."

It swallows and looks at the black mask and goggles.  Day mission, then.  They can't afford for its eyesight to be compromised; the sun would blind it in a matter of hours.  But the mask...  It looks up in confusion.  Opens its mouth as much as it can to show the chains with a question in its eyes.  It can't bite, so why-

Its ears ring with the force of the hit, and it takes a moment to emotionlessly put the dislocated jaw back in joint.  Judging by the tang of iron and the raw shooting pain, the hit had landed on the two left anchors and leftside chain in his gums, and sure enough, it spits a small flake of chipped tooth and some blood to the floor. Teeth heal, eventually, but it takes a long time. Longer than bone.

"Do you question our methods, Soldat?"

It shakes its bowed head and stands motionless, afraid to move, even to follow the implied order and take the mask.  Mistaking fear for defiance, one of them pulls out a stun baton and jabs it between the ribs, electric current snapping along its metallic bones, juddering down its left arm in uncontrollable spasms, fanning out in tendrils to sear the soldier's gums as well where the chains pull taut in a fractured scream.  The seam along its metal shoulder starts to reek of burned meat, steaming with the voltage until finally the man is told to stop.

"Knock it off, Brock.  We can't afford to damage this thing too badly.  It'll be wiped soon enough, we don't want a malfunction because you wanted to teach it a lesson it won't remember anyway."

The mask is grudgingly dropped in front of it, and it trembles as it takes the gear. The Asset gets up off its knees where it had dropped when electrocuted.

It is led out of its cell and escorted to a room where the air is thin with disinfectant and an undefinable medicinal odor that brings up flashes of its own.  While the men put his mask, goggles, dossiers and blood aside, the Asset stops, eyes vacant, unfocused. The room is tilting, a little. It cannot move, suddenly, as though its insides have gone to ice. It is afraid.

_The procedure has already begun._

_Cut off one head, two more shall take its place._

_Hold it still, we need that synovial fluid over here: We've got a ruptured bursa that needs replacing. Do we have any MSD Spark Guard left? Yeah, I know, pass it over. Vice. Tighter. Don't worry, it isn't going to crack on you, just pull that part back with the forceps.  Wait, lift the clav- Will you shut the damn thing **up**?!- finally, Jesus.  Lift the clavicle.  Higher.  There, now put it in place with the drill.  It's a temporary job, probably snaps on the next hard tumble, but we just need it to last a few days until the new parts come in.  Honestly, if the recoil from the shot doesn't break it, the weight of the arm alone might.  Are you sure they only authorized steel?  I mean, I know vibranium is tough to come by, but I almost feel bad for it, knowing it's just gonna-- Okay, okay.  Well, peel the forearm open, might as well replace the frayed tendons while we're at it.  Put the panel a little lower.  Hey, did you hear Laney finally got married?  Yeah, last weekend.  What a sucker...  Alright, let's see what we've got here.  ...What material did we sub out for the interosseous, or didn't they change that yet?  Huh.  It's pretty porous.  Ask McPherson if he can find a purchase order for this shit, I need to know what it is before we-- Oh my God, are you kidding me?  Well, no, I mean, I shaved off six inches of regrown bone tissue in the past four months.  The damn thing heals faster than I can replace components.  I have to abrade all this shit off! Grab suction, there's gonna be bleeding. We need to use something else for this, more stable, something the body will think is its own. God, no wonder movement was limited in rotation- would you look at that? This is unacceptable. Until Rick gets that new order in, this thing is fucked. You know what?  Just tell the boss I need to see him in 20.  Close it up.  The arm is a wreck, but it'll function for now.  Just expect a few breaks and fractures when he comes back in, is all I'm saying.  This is like a goddamn erector set.  Close it up, we're done.  Just put it in cryo for now to make sure it doesn't use the arm before it has to. And keep that damn muzzle on!  I don't want to hear that shit, you got--_

 

Hands roughly shove it forward, dislodging the flashback, but the Asset cannot recover fast enough and it is choked by the unwanted recollection.  The reek of iodine and soldered marrow still cloys its every inhale.  As it doubles over, it's kicked in the neck and collapses.  It gags on the floor, coughing through the heaving of its insides. There is nothing to throw up anyway, there never is.  It's not allowed to eat without permission.  It is not allowed to hunger without permission.  It is not allowed to be without permission.

It is lifted from beneath its shoulders by two men and dragged to the chair, held down, teeth and nails and eyes and body quickly given a cursory appraisal.  It is all too keenly aware of the bend and flex of intricate metal hinges beneath its skin, thick with interwoven biotechnological fibers replacing and fusing with live muscle tissue.  If it thinks too hard about it, it will be sick again.

The restraints lock it into place, and behind an affectless mien it is choking on its own bile and terror.  When the hum of the machine revs up, it fights to steady its breathing and accepts the rubber splint tucked into its mouth behind the chains.  It knows the shock is coming, can hear the technicians adjusting the settings and calibrating equipment, but it is never quite prepared, not ready, never ready enough never ready never- please-  _please--It is scared, it is scared, it does not want to forget, it does not want, it does not want, it wants--_

A name.

A name?

\- _the_ name, what is _the_ name?  Back, in the cell, it just had it, goddamn it, it was there-- waiting, at the top of the stairs, just past the door, to be held, to be  _safe_ , what was the name?  It meant... not alone, not lost.  Not lost... To the end of the... the...  What was... wait... Steve.

Steve.

_I'm with you to the end of the line._

 

_A little boy with a scabbed lip smiles, offers up half a sandwich, blue eyes glinting like cobalt glass._

_Steve..._

The switch is thrown, and the world burns up in a white-hot magnesium flare, its metal arm vibrating in a high squeal against its restraint, and the afterimage of the little boy flickers, distorts, crumbles away.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion of our two beloved boys! Finally! Er, well, hooray for us, but oh no for Steve. Poor Steve. Poor Bucky.

It is tired. The packet of blood removed the last vestige of weakness from the Chair.  It is in fighting form, but only just.  The first knife is useless against the mark; it's too quick with a block and a parry to make contact.  It growls with frustration, switches hands, _Fine, it can play.  Let's play._ Its arm absorbs the hit, takes another knife in its left hand and it is  **close.** So close, but the knife tears uselessly through the aluminum paneling and its target ducks out of the hold.

 

The Captain is fast, clever, quick to adapt.  The shield had seemed ridiculous at first-

 

_Where the hell is your gun, Steve?  Not that I mind havin' your back, believe me, but is there a reason you're prancin' around on the frontlines in your very manly and intimidatin' tights without an actual firearm?  How come I gotta do all the heavy lifting while you're slinging that trashcan lid around?_

_Why, you want a pair?  I can put in a good word with Carter, I'm sure she'd spring for it.  And I make you do the 'heavy lifting'  because then I know you're safely hidden up a tree where you can't get into any more trouble, Buck, so shut up._

_Your words wound me, Rogers.  Really.  My ego's been hit.  I might need a medic._

_Knock it off and keep walking, 'Sergeant.'_

 

Where had that come from?  The Asset shakes its head clear of the images and refocuses on the task at hand.  That shield is more dangerous than it looks, especially when it's flung hard enough to send vibrations all the way up its arm and into its spine.  When it steals it for a moment, it can calculate the heft, assess the quality and tensile strength of the metal, and it is familiar... its left hand hums in tandem with the Captain's weapon.  Caught, flipped, dodges the next jab, but then the shield knocks its head back and its vision whites out...  Damn the sun, how can it be expected to work in this light?

Its goggles... dammit.  Somewhere along the line it's lost them, and its eyes sting in the brightness.  The eye-black can reduce glare, but that only helps so much.  It is this distraction that allows the Captain to gain momentum, catch it off guard, and then it's rolling to its feet but its mask-- where is its mask?--

 

 

**"Bucky?"**

 

A moment, a single instant, a pinprick where its heart lies still... why?  

 _Who the hell is Bucky?_   it wonders, but speech with the chains in its mouth is not only forbidden, it is painful.  Its expression must ask the question for it, though, because the Captain seems both startled and confused, as though the name should mean something.

And for a moment, it does.  There is something in the tone of voice, in the Captain's posture, that echoes in familiarity... but it is lost as soon as it comes when it is hit from behind.  The falcon.  It had forgotten, and the error costs it a clean kill as it tumbles, rights itself, and re-lines its shot, mission taking precedence again.  It needs the blood it has been promised, and it wants to rest.  It is so weary.  Its constant hunger, its wretched body, its murky thoughts and useless breath...  It wants to go  _home_ , and cannot even remember what that means, except that it cannot have a home.  Weapons do not have homes, or thoughts, or autonomy.  But the hunger, that agony can be lessened, if only it can complete this 'one simple task.'

A blast, unbearable heat, and God, the light, the fucking light...  It turns, takes the advantage of smoke cover, and retreats.  It is furious with itself and the lost chance to complete the order it had been given.

 

 

***

 

 

Failure is met with punishment.  The return to base is an exercise in awaiting execution, of a sort.  It will be hurt; it suspects it will be wiped.  It knows blood will be withheld.  Tomorrow, the hunger will be worse than it already is, and the thought makes it palm its empty stomach with regret and frustration.  The pain is still bearable now, but only just.

Sick with dread, the soldier tries to occupy its mind with the puzzle presented by the man on the bridge.

_Bucky._

 

The other agents are busy disassembling and cleaning weapons, removing tac gear, noisily talking to each other about what Pierce will want out of them, now that everything has gone wrong.  Its chains have been removed temporarily for the mission debriefing that is sure to follow, but it is still commanded to be silent. Invisible. No one to notice it, then.  It is not included in the chatter because it is not a person, it is a weapon, mute, discarded after a battle lost.  Without a sound, it allows its lips to shape the name, practice the syllables, hold them between tongue and breath.   _Bucky._

 

And then it happens.

 

_I had him on the ropes._

_I know you did._

 

A memory.  Not a flash or a guess or a dream.  A memory, clear and vivid and _real_.  But... No, they couldn't be the same person.  It made no sense.  It must be getting confused.  The length between freezes and the increasing hunger are making it feel as though the boy and the Captain were somehow entwined into one man, but this is not possible.  It is delirious.

 

_I thought you were dead._

_I thought you were smaller.  What happened to you?_

_I joined the army._

 

Unease sets in with a sour panic in its belly.  This is not real.  The boy was not real, it knew that, it knew... _it knew him._

Nostalgia for something it cannot name begins to blossom out of the unease, sharpening the edge of its mind, cutting through the haze.  A stone of grief, lead-heavy, settles to the bottom of its heart:  _It knew him._

 

How?  From where?  From  _when_ ?

 

Inescapable.  The realization plagues it the whole way back to the base.  Already, it has failed.  Pierce will be angry, or worse, disappointed.  Does it dare to say anything?  Damaging, either way: If it is silent, it will never know for sure.  But if it speaks, if it asks, well... it has been trained well enough in the art of perception that it will know whether Pierce is honest in his answer.

The chance is worth it.

 

Pierce demands the mission report, and its voice sticks in its throat.  Maybe if it keeps picturing the Captain, keeps the image cradled in its mind, the image will not be taken from it when the Chair happens.  The desire to retain this one beautiful possibility is overwhelming.  

When the hit comes, the Asset is undeterred, focused.

Murmuring, because it cannot do otherwise, it says, "The man, on the bridge.  Who was he?"  

_Please.  Give it anything, anything at all to go on._

Hope, curiosity, and desperation have made it bold.  A direct order has been ignored.  It waits for pain, but cannot let go.

"You met him earlier this week on another assignment," Pierce snaps, but it is relentless.  The Chair, the hunger, all of it will come anyway.  Let it come.  What matters is... what matters...

 

_Bucky?  Hey Buck, wait up!_

 

"I knew him."  The pronoun, 'I', is enough to earn a beating on its own, but to persist in this way is inexcusable.  When Pierce takes a seat in front of the Asset, it tries to hold its ground, but quakes inside.

"Your work has been a gift to mankind."

Praise?  Its failure and its insubordination is being met with praise?  

"You shaped this century, and I need you to do it one more time.  Society is at a tipping point between order and chaos.  Tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push.  But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom it deserves."

_You shaped this century_

_I need you_

_Give the world the freedom it deserves_

It is needed... it is important, it has a mission it must complete...

 

A flicker, a boy breathes hard with bleeding, dirty knuckles.  A man looks him in the eye and speaks a name. Who?

 

"But I knew him."

 

Pierce gives a tired sigh and stands.

"Prep him." 

A tech timidly protests, "He's been out of cryofreeze too long."

"Then wipe him and start over."

"With all due respect," the tech stammers,  "I don't know if that's a wise decision, sir, given the state of his metabolism.  He needs blood, but if we use the Chair, we can't--"

"Store the blood and wipe him.  Replace the chains, after. Tight. I don't want to hear it speak or see it eat until that mission is successful. You can give him a shot of adrenaline in the morning if he needs it, but if you question me again, I'll feed you to him instead.  Are we clear?"

"Y-Yes sir."

***

After they clean him, dress him, move his catatonic body to the briefing room to gradually regain its lucidity, the Asset lies alone in the dark, and as always, tries to remember.

It has been through the Chair; that much is obvious.  The room is familiar, though it cannot recall anything specific before its waking here.  

Sharp pangs of hunger are tying its stomach in agonizing knots.  It has failed a mission, then.

It rises to its feet and collects its gear.  The dossiers are beside it on the cot, and it looks through the photos and synopses of each 'Avenger.'

Nothing.  This must be the mission it failed, but the memories of its attempts are long gone.  An agent enters into the room with an aura of authority about her, and this, this it remembers.

 

 _"Zhelaniye. Rzhavyy. Semnadtsat’."_ Coals light in its chest, and the Asset cannot help but cringe.

_"Rassvet. Pech’. Devyat’. Dobroserdechnyy."_

Its back arches with the pain, though it tries to keep itself still.  A growl escapes through clenched teeth.

 _"Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu. Odin. Gruzovoy vagon...._ Soldat?"

It grates out its response, barely audible through the unforgiving chains, exhausted, "Ya gotov otvechat."

The woman smirks, and commands him to follow.  It does not know where it is being led to, only that it must obey.

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Its throat is too raw to speak after that morning, but the chains are too tight, anyway.  Its jaw is painfully locked shut.  It's just as well: This is a task that the Asset alone must accomplish, but not with its teeth.  Pierce had made that very clear, and it still had the smoldering marks from the stun baton on its ribs as a reminder.  Steve Rogers, target, enhanced human, primary threat to Project Insight. Terminate at all costs.

"People are gonna die, Buck.  I can't let that happen."

The words are hazy, meaningless.

"Please, don't make me do this."

The Asset is centering itself, focusing inward, trying to prepare itself for what it knows will be a massive expenditure of energy.  It would be more effective, wiser, to allow it use of its teeth, but it has to do without.

It waits, patient, until its prey makes the first move.

 

The shot of adrenaline is wearing off, slowing its reflexes, allowing the effects of its starvation to begin leeching in from the margins of its awareness.  It pushes back the feeling and focuses, hard.  Starvation will resolve itself if it can finish the job.  The target has a death wish, maybe, because it doesn't fight so much as block the Asset, and there IS a difference.  It would know.  Growing irritated, it lunges itself at Rogers and together they crash from the catwalk to the panel below.  The chip slides out of reach, momentarily lost in the fray.  A moment later, it drops again.

 

The Captain makes a break for it, and the Asset hurls the shield after him before firing a few rounds.  Wait, what?

 

_Why?  Tossing that shield... obviously he would block the shots.  Why would it do that?_

 

Enraged, the Asset pulls a knife.  It'll make this hurt.  The mission MUST be finished... it must be.  God, let it be finished.

It manages to wound the target's shoulder.

The chip is within its grasp, and the Asset grabs for it blindly before a hand wraps itself around its throat, grinding the raw pain already there, before locking it in an unfamiliar hold.  Its hand twitches, still holding.  It  _has_ to fucking finish this, it cannot allow itself-- The bone in its arm snaps like kindling, and its scream is a wounded animal sound, caged by its immobilized jaw.  The chains are holding tight.

The arm around its neck tightens, and its vision begins to grey out...

***

_Steve.  You 'wake?_

_Mmm.  What._

_..._

_You think... you think we're ever really gonna get home?_

The captain rolls over to peer groggily at his friend, while Bucky lies on his back and stares up at the canvas.  He's been crying.  Steve's brow furrows in that way it sometimes does, really concerned, and he sits up.  They haven't talked about what might happen after the war, not since Bucky's... change.

"I don't know," he answers softly.  "I hope so."

"Can't go back, Steve, not like this.  Jesus, Stevie.  My ma... Becca... God, what'm I gonna do?"  He reaches to tug at his hair, desperate, before he also drags himself up to cradle his head in his folded arms, resting atop his knees.  "I gotta ask you something."

"I'm not doing it."

Hopelessness, exasperation, it's hard to tell them apart in Bucky's eyes, but he's still crying like his heart's broken.  Maybe it is.

"Steve,  _please._ "

"I'm not killing you."

"Then... then what, huh?" Bucky's sorrow turns bitter, angry, "We're just gonna pretend like this ain't happening?  Is that it?  I can see it, y'know, yeah, you're right: 'Here comes Captain America, savior of the free world, and his fucking leech sidekick.'  That'll go over well, won't it?  'Hey, I'm back, fellas.  From the fucking dead.'  Are you hearing this?  You ever really think it through?"

Bucky's anger idles, and he sighs and buries his head again.  "I'm not gonna do that to them.  To ma.  You gotta understand," his voice breaks as he lifts his eyes to meet his friend's gaze, "I don't wanna be remembered like this, you know?  I don't want to know what it looks like when my ma grieves for her dead son while he's sittin' there next to her, Steve.  I can't do that to her.  Let her mourn for the son she remembers.  He mighta been worth it."

Steve is silent and somber as a shelled cathedral, and twice as broken.  He can't look his friend in the eye.  He can't say what he's thinking;  _No, Bucky, I'm taking you with me. I can take care of you.  I want to take care of you.  I need you.  We'll hide from the whole damn world if that's what it takes.  Don't leave me.  I'm not the same either.  I can't do this without you._

"I'm not killing you, Bucky.  I don't care what you are now.  I'm with you--"

"--To the end of the line, I know, I know.  You ain't got enough sense to know when that is, Steve.  We passed that station miles back, and now we're headed who knows where.  And I gotta act like I'm still one of the guys?  Goddammit.  Goddamn you, Rogers," he says tiredly, and beds down again, rolling over to put his back to Steve.

"I'm sorry," Steve murmurs.  "I really am."

"Selfish punk."

"Yeah, well... You know you'd do the same in my place."

It's quiet a moment, before Bucky says, "Don't be so sure 'bout that, Steve.  I love you an awful lot.  Maybe enough to have the decency to grant a friend their dying wish.  I should be so lucky."

_The air is cold, and his breath doesn't fog the way it used to on a night like this.  He hears Steve lay back down again behind him, and Bucky feels sorry already for saying it, but he wants so bad to be free of this.  To be a person again, even if just in memory._

_Because he's beginning to forget, sometimes, little parts of what it felt like to be alive.  He wonders what would happen if he forgot altogether._

_***_

It rolls onto its side, fighting the urge to cough.  It'd only hurt worse.  The Asset can recognize the flare of hunger and it mentally shoves it away, pulls out the firearm, and takes the shot.

The leg?  It must be the dizziness, affecting its aim.  Fire again.

Christ.

It staggers for a moment, hand to stomach, wincing at the pain.   _Control it.  Complete the mission.  They'll make the pain stop._

Shot.  This time, it catches the target in the torso.

Its consciousness wavers again, and the Asset only has a moment to try to get its bearings before the first explosion hits.  The light sears its eyes, its ears ring with the concussive pressure, and something beneath it gives way...

It is pinned beneath a beam, struggling.  It knows it should be able to lift this, but the broken arm and its depleted strength are working against it.  Hunger creeps in again, reminding it keenly of just how much blood it's losing.  Teeth still locked shut, it can only growl and writhe, and know that it has failed.

A crash next to it tells the Asset that its target has dropped down, and blind panic wells in its chest.  It's helpless, like this.  Vulnerable.  It writhes again, shakes with the effort of trying to free itself.  It doesn't know why it wishes to save its own life when it spends so much of it in pain, but it does know that the mission left incomplete is not an option.  It's that imperative, not self-preservation, that forces it to drag itself free when the beam is finally lifted.

What is this?  Warily, it swipes the blood from its jaw, eyes the target.  Why has he freed it?

"You know me," the captain insists.

The Asset lunges, lands a hit, but can barely breathe.

"Bucky," he says, "you've known me your whole life."

The memory.

The memory, before the Chair.

 _No._ It's a trap, a trick-- the Asset cannot, is not allowed, to remember--

It strikes out blindly, fighting against its own body as much as his captain.

A crack, in the programming.  His.  His?

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes," he pleads.  "You've known me your whole life."

The Asset's gaze narrows, wishing it could  _scream,_ and he strikes again.  He?

The Captain is thrown by the force of it, and the Asset doubles over, panting, pain and fear mounting against him.

"I'm not gonna fight you."

The shield drops.   _"You're my friend."_

Lunging, aware that all is nearly lost, the Asset rebels against the feeling of  _right_ and  _true_ and  _real_.  Words long since stolen, forbidden, pieces of a puzzle that would mean his unraveling to complete.   _His._

The Asset rears its fist, knowing deep, that something beyond its understanding is hanging on this exact moment.  He feels tears burn his eyes, Goddammit, finish it, finish the mission...

"Bucky," Steve rasps.  "It's okay.  It's okay.  I'm here."

_Steve._

His chest seizes and his eyes go wide.

"I'm with you to the end of the line."

When the glass and steel beneath them gives way, the Asset holds the target- the- No, it's Steve.  It's  _Steve--_ close to himself, and takes the brunt of the fall as best he can before swimming them both to shore.  He waits until he's sure that Steve is breathing, steadily, before backing away.

_What am I doing?  What am I gonna do?  Jesus, Steve, God, what did I do to you?  What the fuck did you let me do, you punk, you crazy fucking hero?  Why?_

The mission is gone in so much wreckage.  There's still ash, embers, wavering on the water, and the Asset--No,  _Bucky_ \-- He blanches, realizes he cannot take ownership of that name.  It isn't his to have.  Not the way he is.

The Asset waits, trying to understand how to go on from here.  It cannot return to HYDRA.  The dangerously painful growl in his stomach means it's too risky to stay.  Blood is becoming a more urgent priority with every second he waits here.

_Fuck._

His teeth.

His jaw is locked, still.  He hasn't tried to remove the chains in so long, he cannot even remember when the last reinstalled anchors went in.  Gingerly, he takes his left hand, tries to pry the metal away, and screams mutely into his fist.  No, whatever they'd done to the anchors this last time, they'd finally reinforced them into and through the bone.  To remove the chains by force would be to pull pieces of jaw and palate free.  His only reassurance, then, is that at least he won't be able to hurt Steve.  Not anymore.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's get back inside Steve's head, shall we? This must be a very trying time for him, poor thing.
> 
> This chapter is nowhere near done! But I'll be working on it within the next 24 hours.

Something, a weight, a long-held loss, a burden... it's gone.

When Steve opens his eyes, there is light coming through the window. He's on his own ratty sofa, in his apartment. His clothing is clean, dry, and definitely not what he'd worn when he... died? Thought he'd died. But he hadn't, and how the Hell had he gotten...

It was Bucky.

Steve eased himself to his feet, and shut the blinds, remembering the way light had sometimes burned or blinded...

It was startling, actually, to turn and see him there.  Real.  Alive... or as close as he could get these days.

 

And Jesus, he was thin.  Dark circles beneath his eyes.  He was asleep, resting against the wall in the opposite corner of the room.

Every cell in his body was reaching desperately for his friend, but the cuts and breaks from their fight were not mending, he noted.  At least, not with the same speed they should.

_He needs to rest._

Steve pulled the blanket from the couch, worried by the days of frigid cold when Bucky could no longer keep a body temperature.  Gently, he tucked the blanket around his friend's body, took up a book, and began to read until Bucky woke.

***

It was a gift, Steve supposed, that he was always a little too aware of when someone was watching him.  It isn't something done to him by the serum; rather, it's the product of years of self-conscious childhood, knowing all too bitterly when he was being stared at behind his back or from someone's peripheral vision.  Watched the sometimes-poorly-hidden curiosity, or worse, the open simpering pity.  The fawning that never left him with any real comfort.  The veiled glare that made him feel more like an exhibit in a freakshow than a man.  

The only one who never looked at him like that was Bucky.  Even his mom, at the height of his worst illness, got that look of fearful empathy.  Bucky never did; he always watched Steve closely, sometimes with fondness, respect, sometimes like he's watching heaven split open, and sometimes like he'd wanted to wring his neck in frustration.  During a fight, Bucky would get this look like a ref watching a prizefighter.  He'd always wait, watch Steve exchange hits as long as he could before stepping in.  He was the only one who had faith that Steve could do anything but... well, die.  After Erskine, it was different, of course.

It was then that the tables turned, and Bucky spent most of his time hiding from the same looks Steve had gotten growing up.  The worst of it was nobody knew.  Bucky was alone, save Steve, in the understanding of what had been done to him.  Instead, most of the men thought him a victim of the worst kind of shell shock, or an unfixable lab rat whose torture under experimentation cut him off from ever putting his psyche back together.  Pity.  Curiosity.  Steve supposed they both had reason to shut out the world at one time or another.

Steve felt the familiar press of someone's eyes on him, and turned to set his book aside and sit up on the couch.  Bucky was still in the corner, but was very carefully sizing him up.  In truth, for the first time since recognizing his friend, Steve found the expression on Bucky's face to be familiar.  Not just the features of a ghost, but the living image of the man who'd fought beside him.  Wariness, and the tightly-coiled violence of a patient but cornered predator.  Nightmares used to do this to Bucky, sometimes, especially in the weeks before the train.  All the fear and defensiveness were stripped down to the bare stalks of survival tempered with resignation.  He looked like someone who knew intimately what pain and indifference did to a person, and had accepted that as the only outcome long ago.  Although Steve didn't know exactly what had happened to Bucky to make him what he was, his appearance and the way he carried himself spoke volumes.

"Bucky?"

He didn't move, didn't even respond to the name.

Steve bit his lip.  Did his friend even recognize him?  Briefly, he wondered how Bucky had even known where Steve lived, before immediately scoffing at the question.  Bucky had always been overly thorough in his approach to enemy analysis.  That's one attribute that would have been sharpened rather than blunted in HYDRA's captivity.

"Do you know me?" he asked quietly.  Bucky didn't move.  He didn't speak.

After a moment, he carefully nodded.   _Yes._ Steve noted the persistent confusion, the wariness, and Bucky's posture.  Bucky probably knew that he knew him, but he could tell that the information was shaky.  He might not even remember Steve's name; only that he was familiar in a way that he didn't fully understand.

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

The slightest shake of his head.  _No._

"Will you..." Steve took in a breath, held it for a moment.  This wasn't the wisest choice, but, "Will you stay here?"

Quiet.

He watched as Bucky glanced at the window, the door.  He was scanning escape routes.  Either they weren't worth it, or he knew he couldn't make it far on his own, because he finally nodded again.

More quiet.  The apartment was brimming with tension and silence.  Steve cleared his throat.

"Do you... want to see the rest of the place?  There's a spare room, you could..." He trailed off.  Bucky was staring at him like he'd been speaking a foreign language, so he backpedaled, trying to figure out what he might've said that was 'off.'  

In the meantime, Bucky shivered beneath the blanket, still waiting.

Forget it.  His friend was nowhere near his right mind, it might be better if... well, Steve knew Bucky was in no shape to take the lead, so it was up to him.  Giving orders, though, or anything close, left a bad taste in his mouth.  Pierce, Rumlow, who knew how many bastards had controlled Bucky against his will.  Years of that, trauma piled on top of trauma, and suddenly it was like some horrible miracle that Bucky had even survived to this point, here, shaking in this room.  Steve's heart, sore for Bucky since childhood, ached all over again.

"I'm gonna," he hesitated, "I'm gonna come help you up, okay?  I'm not going to hurt you."  Bucky's expression didn't change, but he tracked Steve as he came closer, shivering a little worse as he approached.  When Steve was in arm's length, standing in front of Bucky, his friend's breath grew ragged and he flinched away, burying his head in his arms.

 _He's protecting himself,_ Steve realized.  "Bucky?  Look at me."  No sooner had the word 'look' fallen from his lips, Bucky snapped back to attention, eyes wide and staring at the empty space beyond Steve's shoulder.  He was holding his breath, but still trembling noticeably.

"Come on."

Carefully as he could, Steve helped Bucky to his feet and started to walk him to the spare bedroom.  "Wait here, I'll get you some clean clothes."

He'd left Bucky shaking, seated on the bed, but nearly dropped what he was holding when he came back to find him standing, stock still aside from the tremors, staring at the wall wearily.

"Bucky?"

Nothing.

"Okay, well, I've got... I have some clothes, here.  There's a bathroom through that door.  Why don't you take a shower, clean up a little.  You'll feel better.  Just leave your dirty clothes in the hall, and I'll take care of them.  Then come out when you're ready.  I'll be right outside."

Still no indication that he'd heard.  "Buck," he pleaded, "answer me."

There was a sort of raw sound, like someone whose voice was lost attempting to speak, and Steve remembered with a sick pang of guilt how he'd nearly crushed his friend's trachea in the attempt to prevent project Insight.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, Bucky.  I just wanted to be sure you heard me, okay?  Don't talk if it's painful.  Just nod or shake your head for me if you need to respond, okay?"

Bucky dared a glance at him with an uncertainty in his eyes, but redirected his gaze at the wall.  He nodded.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky is, understandably, really confused. Steve doesn't help, except he does, which is even more confusing.
> 
> Russian translates as follows:  
> Monster. Helpless. Free to a good home.  
> Come on now, little puppy. No, no, mongrel, not where men are eating.  
> Move!  
> No, on all fours. Like a dog.  
> Yes sir.  
> All this Russian is probably terrible, on account of my using google translate, so I'm sorry in advance for mangling what is normally a very beautiful language.

When the door shuts, Bucky lets out the tense breath he'd been holding.

 _Steve, this is Steve...  Who...?_ The name dodged in and out of meaning.

Memories and lies and impossible contradictions whirled in his mind, and he felt worse than sick.  The hunger had sharpened to a constant, stabbing pain, and while his body tried to mend his broken arm, cracked trachea, bruises, sprains, and lacerations, there was a fog of exhaustion and confusion muddying everything together.

_There are things it knows, when it gets confused.  Training it remembers even to death.  Follow the orders of its handler.  Comply._

It-  _he_ \- was cold, and tired.  It knew that cleaning was protocol, that it would sting and abrade its wounds, but as it stood there, nobody came to drag it away.  The door stayed shut.  It was a moment before he dared look around.  Even then, it was another moment before he really grasped what was happening.  There was nobody here.  Nobody in the room to strip him down, beat him, throw him against a tiled wall and freeze him with a punishing jet of water.

It stood for a moment, listening to the man,  _Steve_ , sit back down on the sofa in the other room.

What are its directives?  There was no request for a mission report.  Its handlers were gone, destroyed, and it was here, now, recaptured by this... man.  This person who commanded authority, somewhere in its brain, where it knew unquestioningly to follow him.  _Steve._  

This had happened once, a very long time ago, outside of Satu Mare in Romania.  The Asset had been 'recomissioned,' as it were, to a different handler by force for at least six months before HYDRA was able to locate and reclaim it.  Romanian rebel fighters, it remembers, near the border. The difference was, in that case, it had been beaten unconscious by the other HYDRA operatives and tied outside, shirtless, against a tree nearby.  The team had gotten drunk and rowdy, and this usually wound up with the Asset being forced to do any number of things against its will.  Some it remembered, some it forgot, and some it wished it could forget.  This was one of the latter.  It had been ordered not to fight back before they'd really started in on it.  Words carved into its body, чудовище down its right arm, беспомощный on the inside of its thigh... бесплатно к хорошему дому had gotten them laughing uproariously as one of them painstakingly etched it into its bare chest with a dirty knife, still slick with grease from whatever they'd been eating at dinner. 

"Come on now, malen'kiy shchenok.  Not allowed inside, are we?  No, no, помесь, not where men are eating.  Outside, now, c'mon."  The officer whistled and held out his hand as though beseeching a dog.  It ground its teeth and didn't move until it was kicked savagely in the back of its head.

 _"идти!"_ The man snapped behind him.  As the Asset started to get up off its knees, hands bound together behind its back, it got another kick to the head, and toppled over, blinking stars out of its vision.

"Нет, на четвереньках. Как собака."  It heard the smirk behind the order, and felt a thin cord wrap in a noose around its neck.  It stayed bent over, but slowly and painfully crawled on its knees where it was being led.  Balance was difficult.  Dizzy, hands still bound, every tug on the rope felt as though it'd pull it face-first to the ground.  Its knees were black and wet, skidding unsteadily in its own blood on the wooden floor.  Laughter roared behind it, with a chorus of guttural drunken Russian.  'Good dog,' they'd said. 'Go on, now, outside.'  Out in the snow, it was tied by the neck to that tree.  The cold was brutal, but the distance from the men was a relief.  Only later, when they'd had enough to start stumbling to their own tents, they saw the Asset tied and blue-grey with the bitter temperature.  It was solid, stiff, but 'living' though its body was frozen through.  Its eyes felt like packed ice in their sockets.  It couldn't see much really, or feel anything aside from _sharp_ and  _dead_.  But it could hear.

"What's this?  Still here?"  They took turns, about four of them, brushing the snow from the words etched into it.  The blood had already frosted over.  A few hits, laughter, before another blow to its face put it into the darkness for good.

There was an insurgent brave enough to leave his hajduk friends and creep up in the night after unconsciousness had settled over the drunken lot of them.  He took a look at the soldier, presumably, and had some ideas about how that brutal-looking arm might come in handy.

The man tried, at first, to pry the arm free.  He must have thought the Asset was frozen to death- Who wouldn't?  But when the body jerked with a sound like crunching glass and groaned, he startled back.

"You... You're not dead?"  It wasn't like it could correct him, really.

When the Asset woke, confused but thawed, the Romanians had already tied it to a chair.  "We are your keepers now.  Tell us, what was your mission?"

It said nothing.  There was nothing they could do to make it speak.  Nothing its prior handlers had not already done in jest at one time or another.

When, days later, one of the other Romanians had procured a book he'd stolen from the very panicked and disorganized camp, the Asset recognized the cover and felt itself go motionless with fear.

"Don't want to talk?  Alright, then, soldier.  Let's see what you say when you've come around to our way of seeing things, hmm?"

It tried not to scream this time.

 _"Zhelaniye. Rzhavyy. Semnadtsat’.Rassvet. Pech’--"_ It screams.  It screams until its voice is useless.  Until the searing light in its eyes fades behind the shadow of a new master.

"I require your mission report, soldier."

"да сэр," it rasps.

***

When it comes to, the flashback has receded and left a sort of fogginess behind.  It isn't there.  It has no mission report.  Has not been debriefed yet.  It hopes, for some reason, that Steve has that book.  It believes that this man could be... kind, maybe.  There's some feeling, these constant tugs of familiarity and yearning, and he has been gentle with the- with Bucky, whom he says he knows.  There is something buried so deep he cannot see it in his mind, but he feels it, like a call to prayer humming through him every time Steve speaks.

It's as though something is saying ' _Come back_ ' and he doesn't know how, because he doesn't even know where or who he is.

***

When he finally figures out how to use the shower, (this is embarrassing; he can disassemble an AR 15 in the space of a single breath, but he hasn't used a shower since... since... Has he ever used a shower?), there is a moment of choked disbelief when he realizes it can change temperature.

Did he know?  Steve had told him to clean, had motioned to this room, and so he must have known.  He  _told_   him to do it.  He... He let him.  Let him come here, into a room with a thick rug on the floor and a towel, there, on the hook.  The Asset hesitates, then runs his fingertips over the cloth.  It's so _soft_.  It isn't for him, not if it feels like that, it's not as if he's forgotten his place.  But this, the water... he turns the knob a notch further.  There's steam _._

His eyes go wide and he tentatively reaches his palm to feel the warmth of the falling water, and it's stupid, it's fucking ridiculous, it's  _nothing_ , and so he doesn't let himself acknowledge that he's crying.  Not until he eases himself under the spray, and he breaks into a sob.

The patter of it, painless except where his wounds are still open, is like a benediction.  Dirt and filth sloughs off him.  His hair is hopelessly tangled, but he finds the soap and... The _smell_ , vanilla and rain, is unexpected and beautiful.  He lathers his hair, and realizes it's clean enough to unsnarl in places.  The grime from his skin is clearing away, and eventually the water beneath him is clear and sudsy instead of mottled with gray and rust.   _Clean._ Clean without pain.  Without cold.  The steam around him still carries the sweet smell of the soap, and it feels so good he could melt.

Heat glows through him, and he turns, sinks down to lay in the tub and revel in the gentle pressure and heat on his belly, soothing the ever-present lash of hunger until it fades into an ache dull enough to slow and deepen his breathing.  It's almost enough to convince him he's safe... which is why he is on guard.  He can't let himself slip like this, can't afford to relax.  But... Steve, whatever he was to him, seemed not to want to hurt him.  Seemed to care whether he was in pain, even when they were nearly killing each other.  It-  _He_ \- considers this, reclined in the heat.  Beneath the worry and the doubt, there is gratitude so strong it is almost overwhelming.

Quiet.  Warm.  He doesn't care when his eyes still sting.  Doesn't care that he cries, not anymore.  He had nothing left, and now he has this... hot water, soap, quiet.  He can't bring himself to let his guard down, but he allows himself to acknowledge that this one moment is so cruelly and beautifully  _real_ , and that seventy years of torture have given way to his being here, and if Steve wants anything from him at all, he would give it instantly,  _gratefully_ , for letting him have this.  The scars from those words cut into his skin decades ago are so faint as to be barely legible, only raised in places where the knife had pared too close to the bone, and as he runs his fingers over the pattern of it spanning his chest, he realizes he would let Steve cut him twice as deep, carve his name and leave him in the snow, if it meant he could stay.  If it meant that he would be his handler.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, friends! It's been a long time since I updated. Why? Because it was going to be a long-ass chapter, that's why. I worked on it for several days, edited it, and when I pressed 'post' it disappeared. I've reported this to AO3, but in the meantime, there was very literal wailing and gnashing of teeth. That was about 70ish hours of work gone in a split second. Fantastic.
> 
> Anyway, I hope this one is at least as good. No, it's not as long. Yes, I'm trying to find some sort of type recovery extension for chrome that will prevent this in the future.
> 
> Now that I have subjected you all to my impotent rage, away we go:

When the clock makes it to fifteen past the hour, Steve feels a certain growing fear that something is wrong.

 

The bathroom is eerily quiet except for the steady thrum of the water beyond the closed door.  As he considers how pale and wary his friend had been, Steve begins to worry about just how badly Bucky might have been wounded.  He knows he'd gotten in a few good hits even if he'd been fighting only in self defense; and who knew what HYDRA must have done to him while he was under their control.

 

He waits a bit longer, but concern wins out in the end.  Steve bites his lip and listens carefully, and hearing nothing, sets his book down on the coffee table before getting up to tentatively knock on the door.

 

***

 

Safety, security, peace.  These are gifts that do not lend themselves to the Asset's configuration, unless it is ensuring them for someone else.  The experience of them is so unlike anything it remembers that the incongruity has blended into exhaustion.  Personhood's hold on the soldier is new, fragile, and assaulted on all sides by seventy years' reinforcement of absolute submission and torture.  Things become... foggy.  Literally disintegrated. 

 

Tired.

 

Warm.

 

Its body aches in a way that overwhelms its senses.  Something is missing; there is something it is supposed to remember.  Something about where it is, who it is with, but the information is muddied with pain and delirium.  It has overreached its efforts; has broken itself on the rocks of exhaustion and depleted itself to the point of uselessness.  The water has run clean.  It has nothing left to bleed except its hazy awareness.  Steps, outside- they halt- a knock, twice.

 

_Bucky._

 

Two obscure syllables.  It should know the voice, but there is no energy left to grasp at the word or grapple with its meaning.

 

_Bucky?  Can you hear me?_

 

Tired.  The water is starting to lose its heat.

 

_Buck, if you don't say something, I... I'm gonna come in, okay?_

 

It drifts.  Falls away.  Sounds blur.

 

_...-pen the door, alri-..?  ...Can you hear me... -ucky...?_

 

What little strength is left is used to turn it over, get to its knees beneath the spray, before it leans woozily against the cold tile, breathing hard.  Vision fades; returns; it is too vulnerable like this.  It tries to push itself up, but the world goes static and there's a ringing in its ears that gets tangled with the rush of the water.

The door opens as it sags weakly over its knees, and finally gives up its mind to the dark.

 

***

 

 At first, Steve panics.  He drops to a crouch beside the tub and feels how the water has gone cold, turning Bucky's skin a chilly dove-like gray.  A flick of his wrist shuts off the shower, and he tries a few times to shake him, cradles his face desperately, repeating his name,  _Bucky, Bucky, can you hear me?_  
  
  
The slow, rasping breath tells him that his friend is still... alive, or whatever counts as such in his condition.  It's then, though, that Steve is confronted with the fact that he has a view, from this angle, of Bucky's entire naked back and neck.  The sight knocks him back on his heels as his eyes span the ruin of this body, taking in too much all at once to form any kind of thought.  Struck with horror.  Awe.

Bucky heals quickly; this he remembers from the war.  To leave so many scars... it's a testament to exactly how far he has been pushed.  He has been starved and beaten beyond the point of recovery, leaving his unnatural disease to knit his flesh back together as best it can under the circumstances.

Bruises flourish like watercolor blossoms, black to purple to blue to green to gold-yellow, soaking the canvas of his back in a way that is both beautiful and sickening.

A scatter of inch-long lines are clustered in a few spots: Beside his right shoulder, peppering the valleys between his ribs, leaving a pattern of dashes over his left kidney.  He recognizes them after a moment.  Stab wounds.

Burn scars, long and thick, across the shoulder, flanks, and neck.  Beaten, then, with something white-hot. A stun baton, maybe.  Some of it looks only partially healed.

The bullet wounds are easy enough to spot.  It's depressingly familiar, and just there, on his hip, is one that's a little more faded and worn than the others.  That, he knew, was from the war.  From before Steve had found him, even, in Azzano.    
  
He allows his eyes to wander, finally, to the sight he had been avoiding.  Metal fused with muscle, raw along the edges where his body has tried to reject the grafting and failed.  The arm is vibranium, if Natasha's report on the Winter Soldier was correct.  Toughest metal on the planet.

What does it mean, then, that there are scuffs and grooves furrowed into the shoulder and bicep?  Not many, admittedly, but something must have hit hard to leave such a mark.  The red star, so close up, is imperfect: A scrape has run though the decal on its right point, and few flakes of shrapnel, small but noticeable at this proximity, have been chipped from it somehow.

Between the plates of metal, there's a bluish glow.  He traces one of these cybernetic veins to where it is buried beneath a furrow of marbled scar tissue.  He notices, too, that the glow is faintly visible on the other side of the scar beneath the skin.  How much of him have they really replaced?  Steve suppresses a shudder, barely.  But it's then that the whole picture of Bucky's long captivity comes into gruesome focus:

Between and around and through these seemingly chaotic and random wounds, there are some that are not so random.  Not random at all.

A thin line of scarring runs vertically along Bucky's spine, disappearing somewhere beneath his dark hair, ending roughly at his pelvis.  In the same way, there are other thin lines with a frighteningly precise geometry: A careful linear tracery around his left scapula, as though flesh had been peeled away from the metal.  It's a bit blurrier than the incision along his spine, and Steve's nausea returns full force as he follows it around to meet another thicker scar, running from behind his left ear, along the side of his throat, until it meets the gnarled tissue and metal.   _Maintenance._   He is looking at a vivisection.

A few other places, too, seem disturbingly intentional and precise: along his right side from his lower ribs to his hip, and running parallel alongside his backbone mid-latissimus.  
  
The entirety of it is too much.  Steve clenches his fist and bites down on it to keep from... screaming?  Sobbing?  Something is so unsettled in him that it is clawing itself against the confines of his mind but it's beyond his ability to let it out; beyond his ability to express.  Even behind closed eyes and paced breathing, it's still a fight to keep still and calm.  Rage won't help Bucky or heal him in any way.  It won't take back the past or make up for Steve's failure.

_I did this to you.  Jesus, Bucky, I'm so sorry- I'm so sorry-_

He let him fall, let him be taken by those bastards, let them experiment on him and alter him and control him and  _use_ him to keep their own hands clean of blood.

Steve knows Bucky wouldn't blame him for any of this.  Hell, he'd probably call Steve an idiot for even feeling guilty, but it's not exactly something he can help.  Not a day has passed since Bucky's death that didn't haunt his sleep with a rush of cold wind, a scream, an outstretched hand and the world collapsing down around him as he tries, over and over, and still he falls.  Every time.

With all the gentleness he can, he gathers Bucky in his arms and takes him to the bed in the other room.  None of the rest of his body has been spared, but at least Steve has numb disbelief and shock to distance him from the full impact of the sight.  He clothes him; pulling sweatpants past knees bearing the same surgical-type scars as his spine, over thighs marred with old abrasions and crooked tracks from poorly-stitched gashes.  His belly, too, is subject to a graphic constellation of injury.  Steve runs fingers up across his chest and frowns.  There's another spread of unusual marking here, but it's difficult to make out.

It looks, maybe, like... it's hard to say... writing?  Except, it's not... oh.   _Cyrillic._

As if to read by braille, he runs his fingertips slowly over the words.  Pain clenches in his chest and this time, he cannot help the sob that escapes him.   _Bucky, what have they done to you?_

Lips parted, he ghosts them over the hateful scars, pressing kisses and whispers above his heart, wishing he could pull the litany of suffering from these bones like drawing venom from a wound; breathe it away and leave him pure and whole again.  Wearily, he climbs up to lie beside Bucky and press his cheek to his chest.

He can feel the rise and fall of respiration, but the rest is cold and silence.  No body heat.  Not even a pulse to comfort Steve and sustain his hope.   _They took that, too.  Bastards couldn't even let him keep his heart._

Darkness is broken only by the light from just beyond the bathroom door.  The sounds of his soft sobbing are accompanied only by the barely audible radio Steve had left on in the living room.  It should feel crushing.  The guilt, the pain, the anger, all of it.  Somehow, though, even more than crushed, he feels relief.  Maybe that makes him selfish, but he is far too wrung out to care.

_You're here.  You're home.  You're safe.  Never again, Bucky.  Not ever.  I will never let you go back.  I promise._

With so much upheaval of emotion, it is impossible to tell how much time has passed.  There's a clock on the nightstand behind him, he knows, but Steve can't make himself roll over.  It would mean letting go, even if for only a moment, and the dreams are too close to the surface of his mind for him to so much as consider it.  It's the simplest decision he has ever made; actually, to close his eyes and rest.  If he is here, solid, breathing beneath his very hands, then Bucky is real.  Present.  His.

For the first time in too many years, Steve sleeps without reservation.  Every worry and fear is shelved, at least for now.  They'll be there to deal with tomorrow.  For now, though, let them be.  It's okay.  For now, this is enough.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I didn't know I was writing this the way it happened... but here you go. Fair warning, Steve and Bucky share a closer moment than I'd originally intended, but that's probably as far as it goes physically. I hope that doesn't bother or disappoint anyone... I'd tried to have tagged/warned for it sooner except, well, I didn't even know what direction I was heading.

When it wakes, it is alone.  The smell of coffee hangs in the air.  Next to it is a residual shadow of heat, suffusing and warming the metal of its arm.  With consciousness comes another sensation:

 

 

Pain.

 

 

Too much.  It is overwhelmed, even simply lying alone.  Beneath it is something soft, forgiving.  A bed.

Panic.

 

_Not allowed._

 

Footsteps, there, in the hallway, and instinct presses:  _Get up!  Get up now!_

 

When the door opens, the Asset has dropped heavily to its knees on the floor beside the bed, but it is clear just how much trouble it must be in when it doubles over:  Hunger.  Worse than it has felt in too long.  Enough to choke it, force a grating moan in its throat as it shudders.  Wrapping its arms around its body doesn't help.  Rocking back and forth doesn't help.  Tears leak from its eyes and it is humiliated.  Hunger means a failed mission, and it is  _starving,_ and the chains won't let it speak to apologize or even explain, except it doesn't remember what it possibly _could_ explain... What happened?  It is too difficult to think past the hurt, but it tries, and there are flashes of sight and sound.  A fight.  A dislocation of its arm.  A fall.  Deep water.

 

"Bucky, are you with me?"  His voice is too gentle for a handler.  It cannot make sense of what's happening, cannot even ask.

 

The Asset shudders again as another hunger pang runs it through, and this... handler?  He kneels in front of it and puts his hands on its shoulders.

Blood, living and vibrant and  _so close,_ is a torment in itself, worse than the confusion, and it struggles to duck away from the hold with a whine and ends up scrambling weakly back to the wall.  Eyes shut.  Dizzy.  Its stomach growls and the Asset sinks to its side and curls around the ache as best it can.

"You're hungry..." the handler whispers, "Jesus, how could I not have... Bucky, I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry."

Bucky... it must be called 'Bucky.'

 

"Here, drink," and the handler pulls up his sleeve, and Bucky  _freezes._

 

Not allowed.   _Never._ This, this it remembers, can never forget, won't forget, it knows, because this is a lesson that it learned too many times to count.  Every time.

 

_The leather cuffs are tight enough that Bucky's grateful he doesn't need to worry about circulation.  The fingers on his left hand are twitching uncontrollably.  His body might be rejecting this one, too.  Fine motor skills are always the first to go._

_"Soldat,"  the man grins, "how are we feeling this morning?"_

_The sour copper taste in his mouth is left over from biting his own tongue and cheek a few hours ago.  Bucky narrows his eyes, rears his head, and spits the mess of it straight into the bastard's fucking eye._

_Karpov wipes the blood from his face with a calm, even smile.  Bucky shifts a little._

_"You might regret spitting this out, later," he says, examining his stained fingers with barely hidden disgust._

_"You know, I don't think I will."_

_"I asked you a question, soldat."_

_It takes him a second to recall.  "How am I feeling?"_

_"Mmm. I'd appreciate it if you answered truthfully."_

_What is he playing at?_

_"Soldat," the Russian prompts sharply._

_"First of all, my name is Bucky."_

_An arched brow.  "Is it? I doubt that very much.  Weapons may have... titles, perhaps.  Designations.  Makes or models.  But not names."_

_"My **name** is  **Bucky**."_

_"We'll see."_

 

_Hours pass. He winces uncomfortably at the twinge of pain in his belly.  He's sickeningly grateful that they'd been feeding him via IV rather than the way Zola had sustained him during the experiments so long ago.  It's been a few days, though, and the thought of blood is becoming more tempting no matter the source.  It starts off annoying, a few pains here and there, but he knows it starts to crescendo pretty rapidly the closer he gets to actual starvation.  It's a feeling that he'd do nearly anything to avoid, ashamed as he is to admit it._

 

 

_Time seems to slow to a crawl.  What feel like days have probably only been hours, but the ache is getting worse by the minute.  He's starting to shiver, sweat, and he can't help but pull at the restraints even though he knows it's useless.  He sighs.  It's become pretty clear, now, what Karpov has decided to do to keep him in line._

 

 

 

_"Okay," he moans.  The guards are a ways off, but he knows they can hear him.  They don't move._

_"Did you h-hear me?  I said **okay**."_

_Nothing._

_It hurts, burns, and despite his best efforts, all he can think about is how to make it stop.  He just needs it to stop, just for a moment, **please** , make it stop..._

_"Tell him," he groans.  "T-Tell him I want it to s-stop..."  His throat is sore, but his stomach is so much worse.  The two guards near the far door exchange a few words, and one of them leaves.  Bucky is trembling, panting, trying to shift in a way that might ease the pain.  The guard returns a moment later, Vasily Karpov beside him._

_"Soldat," he calls, and then approaches the chair slowly with the swagger of a man who already knows he'll get what he wants.  Bucky bites at his lips for the distraction, but there's no relief to be had; no way to divert his attention from the craving._

_"P-Please."_

_"I asked you a question, earlier.  Do you remember?"_

_Bucky can barely fucking remember his own name.  Which is, he supposes, probably the point._

_"How are you feeling, soldat?"_

_"F-Fucking hungry."_

_"Hmm.  What a shame."_

_Bucky snorts.  The trembling worsens._

_"Do you see that wall?  Look, soldat."_

_Bucky drags his eyes from the man's throat long enough to spot what he's pointing at._

_"Do you know what you are seeing?"_

_There's a cabinet, there, open.  An arsenal of guns, explosives, knives, and any number of other weapons are neatly organized inside, but...  nothing special or even unusual in a base like this.  Bucky's eyes flick back to Karpov, questioning._

_"That, soldat, is how HYDRA cares for its weapons.  Clean.  Orderly.  No shortage of ammunition.  Nothing broken, nothing useless.  Every piece kept in ideal condition, tended to and appreciated.  You see," he said, "You are the greatest weapon HYDRA has ever obtained.  But, just like any of those in that cabinet, you are not unique.  We can make another of you, soldat.  In fact, we intend to.  Your choice, if weapons could choose, is between keeping yourself broken, useless, and non-compliant, destined to be crushed and replaced... or being handled in such a way as to maximize your potential.  You will know your place.  You will operate as instructed.  And for doing so, you will be rewarded with maintenance by the most advanced minds in contemporary science.  You will know you have a hand in the glory of our future, the foundations of the new world order.  We are not as cruel as we seem, hmm?"_

_Stars were beginning to cloud his vision.  It was as if the words were punctuated by the sound of Karpov's pulse, hammering at his control, and it was all Bucky could do to focus enough to speak.  Fuck glory.  Fuck world order.  Fuck Karpov and HYDRA and this fucking metal deadweight soldered to his corpse.  Fuck it all.  God, he was hungry._

_"Okay."_

_"Okay?   And just what are you agreeing to soldier?"_

_"Wh-whatever.  I just--" he cut off on a hard gasp, flinching._

_Karpov shook his head.  "No, no, soldat.  You don't believe it yet.  This word, 'I'?  It is not the word of a weapon.  You do not accept that you aren't a man.  But you will. Soon, even."_

_A man?  Bucky hasn't been a man since Azzano.  Not in any way he'd quantify a person, anyway. He has no doubts about what he is, but he isn't just a goddamn weapon.  As Karpov leaves, the guards leave with him and switch off the light.  The door slams behind them, and Bucky grinds his teeth and wonders just how long they can keep this up._

 

 

_Karpov enters the room and the unexpected light sears Bucky's eyes._

_The man strides forward, takes his chin in his hand, and forces the vampire to face him._

_"How are we feeling today, soldat?"_

_Bucky's eyes are open but sightless; staring in the mid-distance as though face-to-face with his own agony.  He shakes his head, unable to speak._

_Karpov laughs.  "Yes, good!  Very good.  A weapon does not feel does it?  Doesn't speak.  We've come along nicely."_

_Snarling, Bucky snaps at the wrist so close to his face, actually catches a fang in his flesh and **rips** , blood spraying his face before Karpov has the reflex to jump back.  When he does, the guards have already clamored to help, but Bucky is only able to swipe the meager blood from around his mouth and he screams hoarsely with frustration.  Energy sapped, he begins to cry._

_A stun baton, sizzling, tilts his head up at the chin.  Beneath his own harsh gasps, he hears the calm, impassive march of the man's heart.  "First lesson," says the cold voice.  "A weapon does not fire unless it is made to do so."_

_The electricity, straight to the jaw, is almost worse than the hunger._

 

_Almost._

 

_It is a long lesson to learn.  It begins with Karpov._

 

_It ends with Sputnik._

 

***

Bucky recoils at his touch, and Steve fights down a frantic reaction.  He wants to kick himself.  He knows the signs when Bucky is hurting.  He's learned through trial and error how to read his color, his breath, his expression for tells.  Bucky is too stubborn to admit when he needs help, but Steve isn't about to let him starve.

But for some reason, he won't bite.

Maybe they never let him?  He's so obviously in need, though, that Steve can't figure it out.  This reminds him all too closely of the days just after he'd rescued Bucky, before he'd been told what he was.  That march home, the night of sleepless worry as Bucky tossed and turned, reserve a place of recognition as one of the scariest times in his entire life.  He hadn't known what was wrong yet, but he'd known it was bad.  After that, it became easier to figure it out, even if Bucky wasn't overly forthcoming.  The biggest hurdle was getting Bucky to admit it.  Actually, no.  The biggest hurdle was getting Bucky to  _act on it._   Of all the things that have changed in the intervening years, Steve admits he wishes Bucky's stubbornness made the list.

_How long has it been?_

_Shut up, Steve._

_I need to know._

_I said **Shut Up.**_

 

_Bucky whirls on him, pale as death and cold as the fog of Steve's exhaled sigh._

_"I'll take care of it!  I don't need a babysitter, alright?"_

_"Do it soon, then."_

_"Yeah, fine, ma.  You sure are a help, you know that, Steve?  So glad I stuck around so somebody could remind me to eat and sleep.  God knows I couldn't figure it out on my own."_

_"Bucky," Steve snapped, tossing his shield down against his pack with a little more force that necessary.  The wind whipped at the canvas, and Bucky sat arms crossed on the cot opposite._

_"Just lea'me alone, alright?  I'll handle it.  Please."_

_"It's cold out there," Steve acknowledged._

_Bucky shrugged._

_"And... I don't think it'll be easy to find something before dawn.  Took us long enough to get here and set up camp."_

_"Great.  My options are limited.  Thank you for pointing that out."_

_Bucky will be lost to the world in twelve days, though they don't know it yet.  Peggy's scent lingers on his clothing, his gear.  He wonders, looking back now, how different everything could have been if he'd only been brave enough to... If he'd just said it.  Said anything._

_"Peggy wanted to see you, remember?  Get a move on."_

_"I told her no, tonight."_

_The look Bucky gives him is somewhere between hope and shame.  He blames himself for all of it.  Steve can see that in him, now.  In all his years of feeling so vastly inferior, especially to the charm and wit of one James Barnes, it would never occur to him that Bucky might feel inferior, too.  Oh, he knew Bucky was afraid of what he'd become, but that self-loathing never figured into the equation Steve wrote for them.  How could Bucky, unstoppable insufferable irresistable Bucky, feel unworthy of someone like Steve?_

_He knows better now.  His heart breaks for it, looking back.  Breaks for it now, when nothing seems to have changed._

_"I can... I don't know.  Wait until the next town, I guess.  I'll be fine, Steve, you don't have to sit here and placate me.  I promise I won't eat anybody.  Go see your girl."  The way he says it is wry and you can practically hear the roll of his eyes, but his body language is closed, wary.  He's holding himself, and he can't quite look at Steve._

_"The next town isn't for another forty miles, Buck.  What if..."  It's not as if he hasn't thought about this.  Not as if he hasn't turned it over and over in his mind since it happened.  The serum has changed his blood, more than likely, but wouldn't it be for the better?_

_It takes what's there and makes it **more** , right?  If Steve's a good person, well, Bucky's the best guy he knows.  There's no reason, aside from Bucky's own reservations, why Steve couldn't donate.  Hell, he'd probably heal so fast he could do it every few days, depending on what Bucky took._

_On the other bed, oblivious to Steve's machinations, Bucky's frowning at the door flap of the tent, as if weighing the odds of what he'd find outside it.  He's wincing, now, every few minutes.  He hides it well, but Steve has had enough stomach aches of his own to know what it looks like when one's especially bad._

_"You could take from me, you know."_

_The silence hangs heavy as Bucky turns to look at him in disbelief.  "You don't think that might be one of your more.... **questionable** plans, do you?  I mean, we have charging into enemy territory completely alone and exposing yourself to voluntary experimental medical procedures of a dubious origin for comparison, so does this take first place or second, do you think?"_

_Steve doesn't quite know how to respond before Bucky huffs, "Don't tease me, okay?"_

_A crow calls somewhere close by._

_"Not tonight, Steve.  It's a little too close to the surface."  He's biting his lip and rocking himself a little, casting another more desperate glance at the door._

_Say it._

_"I'm not teasing, Bucky.  I mean it."_

_Bucky shakes his head, gets up, and starts pacing.  "No, I can... I'll find something, I just..."  He stops, tugs at his hair, starts pacing again with a turn.  He doesn't look good._

_"You found it.  I can do it, Bucky.  The serum might taste weird, might have some weird side effects, but it won't hurt you.  It can't.  You're too good a person.  Erskine told me--"_

_A shattered laugh falls from his lips as Bucky shakes his head, "I know what Erskine told you, pal.  You're kidding, right?  Steve, I've **killed** people.  I'm a murderer.  Or did you forget that already?  I don't think we need to know what happens to someone like me when they get a hit of something like that."_

_The night sky is already glowing on the far horizon, and Bucky wrings his hands as he sees it.  He's trying not to show his fear._

_"Bucky, you won't even have to take a lot.  But enough to tide you over, okay?  Just until we find something else.  Come on, you're already getting sick from it.  How bad are you going to let this get?"_

_"However bad it gets by the time I find something to eat.  That's how bad I'm gonna let it get.  You aren't on the menu."_

_Steve almost feels sorry for what he's about to do.  Not only because Bucky's going to throw a fit, (hopefully **after** he drinks), but because it's one of the old standby tactics of so many a gothic story in George Barnes' 'Amazing Stories' collection.  The knife is so sharp he hardly feels the blade until his forearm splits, crimson already streaming to his fingers._

_Bucky stops, turns and blinks at him as though he can't process what he's seeing, before his eyes go wide and he clasps both hands over his nose and mouth with a startled cry, trying to keep himself from tasting it on the air._

_He almost feels bad, the way Bucky keens, trying to back away but so helplessly transfixed...  The pain he'd been trying to conceal is cracked wide now, writ in Bucky's every movement, every strangled breath... Steve's heart is shaken by the sight of it, and he can't help but offer out his hand, hot red dripping to the ground._

_"Take it.  Please."_

_It's like Bucky's mind has divorced itself from the agony he must be experiencing.  He so obviously wants to keep backing away, but he can't.  Eyes and body are still and focused._

_"Bucky," he says, approaching slowly, and he circles his free hand around his friend's wrist to tug his hand from his face._

_What's so odd, though, is his eye color.  Not the glinting red of so many of those stories.  Not black and dead like a shark.  As Bucky slowly moves to cradle Steve's wrist in both hands, his eyes are a crystal blue.  The grey storm so often reflected in their shade has lifted.  It almost feels like seeing him again for the first time.  In a way, he is._

_Carefully, every inch of blood is lapped away from fingertip to palm to wrist, back to the source.  Bucky's been voiceless for a while now, though he can't seem to help the pained groan that rumbles in his chest when he finally puts teeth to the cut itself as sucks hard.  Steve's knees start to go weak, and he isn't sure if it's the blood loss or the dizzying rush of being so absolutely **necessary** to someone he loves this much.  Gingerly, he tugs Bucky toward the bed so they can finally sit.  After a moment or so, he can actually see it when the edge of the hunger is finally eased.  Bucky's whole body seems to melt a little.  Steve hadn't realized how tightly wound he'd been; how excruciating it must really be for him when it gets this bad... Every muscle must've been tensed against it.  Even his breathing evens out, slowly, like... like he's coming to life._

_Now, thinking about it so long afterward, Steve realizes he must have been every bit as stunned by it as Bucky had been by the blood._

_After another minute of drinking deeply, Bucky finally pulls back.  He's silent, careful, as he takes the gauze from his kit and starts to wrap his arm.  It's bleeding sluggishly, but mostly clotted.  There's so little pain that he marvels at it, before Bucky says very softly, "I'm sorry."_

_"Why?"_

_"I let it get that bad... I didn't..." he bites his lip nervously, "I shouldn't have put you in that situation.  You were scared for your men's safety, I get that, I should have been more careful, Steve, I'm so--"_

_And he does it.  It's not like he planned it, not like he even thought about it as he did it, but he silences Bucky with a kiss._

_Their first._

_It is so delicate that Steve fears he'd made the wrong choice.  He lets go, sees the shock in Bucky's eyes, and tries not to take it too personally.  They'd done things before- Slept close, shared glances or stolen touches-- A hand held here, a head cradled on a shoulder there, but never this, never something so visceral, so **real** , so undeniable he can taste the echo of his own blood when he licks his lips.  Bucky can't speak, but the look in his eyes says volumes._

_Shock, wonder, doubt.  Love._

_He knows that the instant he sees it._

_"No, Buck," he sighs.  "I was scared for **you**."_

 

The same eyes are staring him down in this moment.  Shock, wonder, doubt.  He can't see or expect love in that stare, after allowing him to fall, to die.  Steve knows it's his fault.  But to him, nothing has changed.  He loves Bucky like an earthquake, like the foundations of his self are shaken to the core just by a look, a movement, a sigh.  A tumult of motion, galloping his heart, stampeding in every vein and muscle, and somehow by unknown means so  _perfectly still_ , so much his home and hearth and absolute peace.  A riot of effortless calm.  It is unthinkable that in the torrential storm of his love, he has never been more steady, and yet here he is...  here they are.  After so much and so long, they're here.  Still.

With the same surety he'd had that night so many decades ago, Steve rolls up his sleeve.

"I'm ready.  It's okay," he says, and slowly sits cross-legged on the floor a few feet in front of his friend.

Every second that passes feels endless.  The tension wavers, there, between them.  Pressing the issue would be a mistake and Steve knows it, but it's so hard to watch as Bucky rides out the fever and the hunger while everything he needs to make it stop is to clearly being offered.

Suffering like this is not sustainable.  In the next few minutes, he'll pass out again if Steve doesn't take action.

Finally, he breaks:  "Bucky, please.  Eat."

 

***

 

The handler waits, still, taunting him, wrist bared.   _Control it, control it, control it..._

He wants it so badly he can barely keep from moving.  He can't help but picture it, sees himself breaking, pressing mouth to wound and finding that blessed haze where hunger fades to euphoria, can imagine himself after... kneeling... the-the gauze.   _I'm sorry._

No.  His handler, he can't--he wouldn't--

_I was scared for you._

Clarity floods through him and he sees, for the first time since waking, the man in front of him.  Recognition.

_The kiss breaks, and yeah, okay, Steve was scared for him, but it doesn't change the fact he'd put him in an impossible situation._

_He has never loved anyone or anything so much; has never done so much damage to someone he's professed to love.  His very existence is a goddamn profanity._

_Steve holds his face in his hands and leans his forehead against Bucky's._

_'You worried me,' he says quietly.  'I can't watch you do that to yourself.'_

_He shakes his head a little.  'Steve, how many time's've I told you the same damn thing after a brawl?'_

_Steve drops his hands and scoffs.  'New rule, then.  You don't starve yourself, and I... well, I can't promise not to punch anyone.  Or not start a fight.  Or--'_

_"Just don't... do anything stupid," Bucky grins._

_"How can I?"_

_"Don't start, rogers."_

 

Steve,  His Steve.

Offering his wrist.

And Bucky wants it so bad he could scream with it, and he feels the strain he's putting on his system just by trying to stay awake, so he meets Steve's worried gaze, and he puts a shaky hand to his mouth, parts his lips and shows the chain that keeps his fangs locked tight.

Before he can really appreciate the dawning dread on Steve's face, Bucky lets himself slide back into unconsciousness.

***

Steve scrambles forward, shakes him, calls his name.  Failing that, he despairingly inspects the chains and sees the way they fit, unable to let enough blood even seep between his teeth to slake the hunger. 

_God, Bucky._

He needs Stark and Banner.  Now.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations:  
> Sit up straight, soldier!  
> Maybe next time you'll do as I say.

A long, long time ago, there was a young man named James who was called 'Bucky.'

 

The soldier is waiting for its handler to wake.  It has dragged him from the river, pulled his body back to his apartment through the foolishly unlatched window, and rifled through drawers, journals, sketchbooks, anything it can find that matches the name it had been called.

 

'Bucky.'

 

It is holding a faded photograph in the weak light of the desk lamp.  Yellowed at the edges, smudged, clearly kept close to heart and looked at often.  Its glance falls on the handler, resting silently, before it looks back down at the sepia-toned image.

A young man smiles, hat tilted at an overly-confident angle, with an expression that, if examined closely, reveals a little more insecurity than his posture would suggest.  At the bottom, there is cursive pencil so old it's a miracle it hasn't faded beyond recognition: _**James 'Bucky' Barnes, 1942**_

It holds no memory for the soldier.  It might as well be someone else altogether.  Even its own blurred features in the sheen of its metal palm are unrecognizable as the man in the photo.  Its eyes drift down to a picture frame on the desk where the glass is smoother, more reflective.

Hair, shaggy and tangled.  Eyes blank, blackened, cold.  Skin too pale, hollows of its cheeks a little too pronounced.  It looks, in a way, as it should: The man in the photo is long dead.  The soldier's own existence is proof of that.

 

The sketchbooks are no help, either; except that there are some faces it knows, somehow, even if they do not prompt a name or a story.  A girl with chestnut hair and the soldier's grey eyes. Young, maybe 12 or 13.  _ **Becca**_ , it says. Another page, and a woman with a soft smile and knowing eyes appears.  Blonde hair in a careless tumble around her shoulders; too thin to be 'healthy' but too lively to remain static in his mind. 'Sarah,' he thinks, and then he,  _ it,  _ shivers.  A few other drawings it cannot place: a man with glasses, a woman with eyes like flashing emeralds, a man with a wry grin framed by an angular goatee and accented by an amused and calculating stare.

And then, other illustrations unfold... An apartment, a threadbare rug,  _ a rough-hewn table and chairs, a thin mattress piled with blankets-- _

 

He drops the sketchbook with a startled gasp.

 

_ Steve's cheeks are flushed and his eyes are crazed with fever.  Every cough and wheeze is a blessing, because it means he's fighting, hasn't given up, and Bucky sits beside him trying not to shiver because he's taken every blanket they own and let his friend burrow deep into the pile of them, sniffling, sometimes asking for water, 'Too hot Buck, I can't even breathe, gotta... I need... need somethin' cold, Buck, please...', sometimes pressing close for warmth when the chills hit hard.  'Bucky? 'M freezin', can you...?' And Bucky burrows down next to him, sweating bullets because the blankets and body heat are too much and not at all because he's scared, because Steve doesn't die like this. Bucky knows this with the conviction of a crusader. Maybe one day Steve'll pick the wrong fight, or be felled by some accident, but not like this. Stevie came into this world fighting so hard to live, and it's the one fight he's never lost.  Not yet. And this comforts him, because it's the one fight Bucky can't finish for him. Neighborhood bullies might take a swing once in a while, but Steve has knocked out death more times than either of them can count, and if he's ever had anyone on the ropes, it'd be the reaper himself. _

_ The bed creaks as the blonde coughs again, hacking and harsh, and Bucky picks up the book at the bedside and adjusts the light. _

_ "You find out what happens to Pip and Estella in Richmond yet?" _

_ He blinks blearily and rolls over with a groan.  "Too tired, Buck. Will you read it for me?" _

_ Bucky opens the worn copy of 'Great Expectations,' leafs through the pages, and finally comes upon the dog-eared chapter where Steve had left off. _

_ 'I was three-and-twenty years of age,' he read, 'Not another word had I heard to enlighten me...'  His voice carried in the hazy glow of the lamp, and Steve's breathing, albeit still punctuated by violent coughing, found a steadier rhythm as he laid his head on Buckys' chest to follow along in the novel.  Bucky felt a brief twinge of guilt, still somehow achingly present after all these years: This moment... it was the most content he had ever been. It was the happiest he ever would be. _

_ He could feel his heartbeat, leaping in his chest so hard he was sure Steve could hear it, but he kept his voice surprisingly steady.  After a while, he could tell that his friend was sleeping soundly, even with his illness. Deeply enough that when Bucky carefully closed and set aside the novel, he found himself brushing the sweat-dampened bangs from Steve's brow, and dared, even, to press a silent kiss to the crown of his head.  Here, cocooned as they were in their own world and with Steve safely sleeping, there was nobody to see. No witness to the depth and breadth of a love Bucky knew too well was poisonous. And Steve, the good Catholic his mother'd always raised him to be, would never need know. _

 

A long, long time ago, there was a young man named James.  James, who loved and fought and laughed and cried and  _ lived _ .

The soldier puts a hand to his chest, absently, still lost in the memory of a racing pulse and hushed reading in soft light.  Empty. Echo-less. The breath in his lungs was a lie told by a silent heart. The memory felt like an unwelcome visitor. This dead boy, trespassing on forbidden ground...  _ Bucky. _

It heard the name in a child's voice, from a mother's lips, in an exasperated sigh, in a sister's laugh, with a Brooklyn lilt beneath eyes so familiar they burned.  It was the soldier, maybe, who was trespassing here. The Asset. But even before that... it shivered and wrapped its arms around the hollow sting of its insides. The handler's open wounds were taunting it mercilessly and it forced itself to look away.

The Asset was no more a trespasser than the hunger and the teeth and the serum that ran havoc through its body.

It lets the cover fall shut on the sketchbook, stirring the photograph of a stranger whose memory alone held more life and vitality than the soldier had known in its whole existence.

The vaguest sense of loyalty keeps it here, watching over the unconscious Captain.  It had followed this man once; that much it felt with an absolute certainty. It could not keep its grasp on what that meant or what it looked like; could only see flashes and feel the briefest yet clearest bolts of emotion: It  _ knows _ this handler, it does, it  _ knows _ him somehow.  It must stay awake.  It must remain here, hunger be damned.  It needs to protect the one unfamiliarly familiar connection it has left with the world.

It's difficult, keeping awake.  The need for blood has never felt quite so pressing, and the soldier finally decides it would rather sleep than risk watching its handler in such a condition.  It lets its eyes close.

***

 

"--jaw wired shut?  It's kind of like that, but with these chains.  He hasn't even spoken. God, I don't even know if he  _ can. _  It's like they muzzled him."

It knows that voice.

"I can't explain, okay?  I mean, I can, but it'd take a while, and I just... Can I trust you?"

Where...?  The shower... no, the bed, but not anymore...  Right... It was so tired. And it has been clothed.  Dry, except for the remaining dampness of his hair.

"I know.  Yes. Look, how much does Bruce have on hand?"

The voice is upset.  Its handler is upset.  It struggles to rise, but a sharp and merciless pain takes hold and it doubles over, dizzy.

"Yeah, but- No, Tony, I- Will you  _ listen?  _ " The handler takes a breath, hesitates.  "It's Bucky. Tony, it's him."

Bucky.  He was Bucky.  The name spins crazily in his mind. Bucky's mind.  His mind. He's Bucky.

"Please.  As soon as you can."

The handler- Steve- tosses his phone on the couch and rakes a hand through his golden hair with an uneasy huff of breath.

"Steve," he tries, but with his teeth locked it's rougher than it should be.  Still, the sound pours through him like water as he watches his handler turn to him.  The name was less a word and more of a moan, actually, but enough to bring Steve to his knees beside him.

"You're awake," he says, and sounds grateful.  The last hundred or so times the soldier had heard those words, it was spoken with disdain, or worse, with a sort of cold observation.

Bucky nods.

"God, Bucky," Steve breathes, and holds his face in his hands, reverent.

Shame flickers in his belly, and Bucky ducks out of his hold before their eyes can meet.  He's grateful, for once, for the hair that frames his face and conceals his expression. Steve can't hold him like that.  It isn't right. Not when he's like this; starving and half-delirious with bloodlust. It's sickening.

Still, his handler sits beside him and holds him, whispering, "It's gonna be okay, just hold on for me.  Can you do that? It's gonna stop soon, I promise."

Keening in the back of his throat, Bucky slides out of his grasp and pushes himself away.  He shakes his head, hoping Steve can understand.

"Okay," Steve says with a hush.  "I'm sorry," and Bucky can't pretend it doesn't bother him to hear the hurt in his voice.  

_ It's for your own good, you punk.  You still got no self-preservation instinct, you know that?  Jesus. _

James, speaking from the dead, there in the soldier's own mind, like a haunting of himself... Thought scatters when the pain crashes in again, catching him off guard.  He thinks he might be crying.

"Shhh, Bucky, take it easy.  I know it's gotta hurt like hell, pal, but you can make it.  You're gonna be okay. I promise. You hear me?"

He's coming unhinged with the force of it; can't focus on anything but the agony in his belly, and his mind starts to fracture.  

_ Syad'te pryamo, soldat! _

It's so clear in his mind, the order barked and so often followed with punishment, that Bucky gasps and startles himself, forces his body to pull out of its collapse and he leans against the wall, eyes unfocused and terrified.

"Bucky?"

_ Vozmozhno, v sleduyushchiy raz vy sdelayete, kak ya govoryu.   _ Cruel laughter rings in his ears, and Bucky flinches back from an imagined aggressor as Steve tries again to calm him.

"Please, Buck," he whispers, "Please.  It's just me, okay? I'm not gonna hurt you.  Help is coming, you just gotta hang on. Please."

 

***

He doesn't know how much time has passed.

_ Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038... _

Someone is speaking, quietly, urgently, but the screaming clawing  _ tearing _ inside him is deafening, and he is panting, but his breath can't be caught with his teeth locked, and the exhales are a pained, pleading sound he can't help making.

_ Barnes, James Buchanan; Sergeant; 32557038.. _ .

"Where is he?"

_ No, no, no, please, no, please, no no no no-- _

"Through here.  Look, Tony, before you go in there--"

_ Bucky, your name is Bucky, James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038... _

"You're joking."

_ Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky-- _

"You're  **not** joking.  Holy shit.  I guess we know how he survived getting that arm attached.  Goddamn. A vampire. Captain America's best friend is a vampire.  Are you sure you're not joking? I just want to know if stunned laughter would be appropriate given the situation.  No. Okay. I might anyway, just to warn you, because I literally have no idea how to handle this information, and  _ oh Jesus. _  Okay.  Is he always that pale?"

_ One, two, three, four, five, six-- _ **_cramp_ ** _ \-- _ He groans helplessly, shivering, eyes open and raw with tears but completely vacant.

_ S-Seven, eight--  _ His lips are parted gently, and something tugs briefly at the right side chain, and Bucky screams hoarsely, pain jolting through his jaw and teeth.

"Bucky!  It's okay, I swear, he's a friend, it's okay!"

"Christ, Steve, I don't know.  Whatever that's made out of, it isn't coming out without some kind of procedure.  Those are adamantium at least, maybe even vibranium if I had to guess. Either we find some way to unlock them, or we find a way to cut through them.  Removing them altogether is going to take time he can't afford to spend right now."

"What do we do?"

Tony sits back on his heels and considers the wasted figure in the corner.  Beside him, Steve is wringing his hands like the worried mother hen he is, and Tony is forced to accept that whatever happens next for good or ill will be squarely on his shoulders.  Sometimes being the only genius billionaire playboy philanthropist in the free world, or any world for that matter, is a hell of a lot less fun than you'd think.

"We're taking him back with us.  Pick him up and come with me."

When two strong arms lift him from the ground, Bucky is overcome by a thundering pulse in his ears.  Beneath it, below the torturous pain and fathomless hunger, his last shred of sanity is holding fast to the words he can hear whispered to him as he's carried,  _ It'll be okay, just hold on... hold on for me... _

Somewhere in the dark places where his memories linger, he can hear his own voice repeating the assurances, and he can feel a fevered cheek resting on his chest, following the sound of his reading, burning white hot against him, searing his image forever into his skin.

  
  



End file.
